Official betting involves wagering on a specific outcome of an event. This could be as simple as a team winning a game, or as complicated as predicting how many points a particular team will win by. In order to settle bets and allocate winnings, an agreement must exist between two willing parties. This agreement can be written or verbal, and it must involve one party providing the odds to another party who then places a bet at those odds.
Football betting is an extremely lucrative industry that provides billions of dollars for football tournaments around the world. However, this growing industry also poses a significant threat to the integrity of the game, especially in terms of match-fixing. FIFA, the world’s governing body for soccer, has strict rules against betting and gambling on football matches. The code of conduct specifically bans players, officials, agents or any other person who has a duty to perform from engaging in betting activities on a match or competition. It also prohibits seeking, offering or accepting a bribe to fix a match. It also bars the misuse of inside information that a person could reasonably believe will be used for betting purposes.
In baseball, the 1919 Black Sox scandal was a massive betting fraud perpetrated by Joseph Sullivan, an American sports bookmaker. Sullivan paid eight members of the Chicago White Sox (Oscar Felsch, Arnold Gandil, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Fred McMullin, Charles Risberg, George Weaver, and Claude Williams) to lose a World Series game. These men were banned from baseball for life, and are considered to be among the most corrupt baseball players in history.
