Indian farmers nearly made off with $3,800 by faking Indian Premier League cricket matches and getting a few Russian bettors to wager very real money on them. The entire scheme was pretty complex and thought out enough for them to make money, though not enough for them to evade authorities.
Still, the operation made headlines Monday and now stands as a cautionary tale for bettors. You’re a target, and if you aren’t careful, you can be exploited.
We saw it with the recent indictment of a former World Series of Poker bracelet winner in a $25 million sports betting scheme, and we’ll see it again in the future. As long as there are people willing to be reckless with disposable (or maybe not) income, there will always be people willing to go to great lengths to be on the receiving end.
The biggest takeaway from the cricket scheme is that bettors should actually know a little bit about the league and sport they’re betting on. The real league these fake cricket matches were supposedly a part of had ended three weeks prior. Even a casual fan would have known that. But these bettors apparently did not, which means they were betting money on something they had absolutely no clue about. Why would you ever do that?
A quick glance at a schedule or a roster or even a past broadcast would’ve revealed this thing for the fraud it was.
Even acknowledging the possibility that the bettors figured it was fake and just wanted a stake in whatever makeshift thing it was they were watching on YouTube, they couldn’t have known the players on the field were being tipped off in real-time about incoming bets. This is where it helps to have a little autonomy, or at least a licensed sportsbook operator to facilitate your bad bets.
Any way you slice it, putting money on these matches was a bad idea. When sportsbooks promote phone numbers for people with gambling problems to call, this is an example of who they might be talking to. If you’re not informed about the thing it is you want to bet on, then just don’t.
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