It is very easy for UFC fighters to engage in match-fixing; might even be legal

JJCc

JJCc

Banned
Banned
Joined
Mar 17, 2020
Messages
715
Reaction score
880
There has been recent talks about UFC fighters betting on themselves to win a fight, and some that even did it. UFC Fight Night: Justin Jaynes bets on himself vs. Charles Rosa (yahoo.com)

Here's a law review article on potential criminal penalties: Criminalizing Match-Fixing as America Legalizes Sports Gambling (marquette.edu)

The more interesting situation is what happens if a UFC fighter bets on their opponent to win. I do not see any obvious rules/regulation that would prevent this.

There seems to be laws that forbid the bribing of persons to influence the outcome of a sporting event, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of criminal penalties in place that would prevent an UFC fighter from betting on his opponent.

The UFC does have a code of conduct but that doesn't specifically address any situation where a fighter would bet on their opponent (arguably it's conduct that can hurt the reputation of the company, but that's very vague, and applies to so many things).

I think in this hypothetical, you can get away with it. Let's say Fighter A, decides to bet on Fighter B to win the fight by decision.

If confronted and asked Fighter A why did they did; and the reasoning was, Fighter A did not try to intentionally throw the fight, but Fighter A was sure he would lose, because he was injured, he was hurt, and he honestly thought Fighter B was a better fighter.

Fighter A claims he would still fight his heart out but he thinks Fighter B will beat him, and places a huge bet on Fighter B.

Sure, there is a obvious conflict of interest, but I haven't found anything that would make that conflict of interest illegal or make Fighter A subject to criminal/regulatory body fines. At most, they might have breached the code of conduct by the UFC.
 
JJCc said:
There has been recent talks about UFC fighters betting on themselves to win a fight, and some that even did it. UFC Fight Night: Justin Jaynes bets on himself vs. Charles Rosa (yahoo.com)

Here's a law review article on potential criminal penalties: Criminalizing Match-Fixing as America Legalizes Sports Gambling (marquette.edu)

The more interesting situation is what happens if a UFC fighter bets on their opponent to win. I do not see any obvious rules/regulation that would prevent this.

There seems to be laws that forbid the bribing of persons to influence the outcome of a sporting event, but there doesn't seem to be any sort of criminal penalties in place that would prevent an UFC fighter from betting on his opponent.

The UFC does have a code of conduct but that doesn't specifically address any situation where a fighter would bet on their opponent (arguably it's conduct that can hurt the reputation of the company, but that's very vague, and applies to so many things).

I think in this hypothetical, you can get away with it. Let's say Fighter A, decides to bet on Fighter B to win the fight by decision.

If confronted and asked Fighter A why did they did; and the reasoning was, Fighter A did not try to intentionally throw the fight, but Fighter A was sure he would lose, because he was injured, he was hurt, and he honestly thought Fighter B was a better fighter.

Fighter A claims he would still fight his heart out but he thinks Fighter B will beat him, and places a huge bet on Fighter B.

Sure, there is a obvious conflict of interest, but I haven't found anything that would make that conflict of interest illegal or make Fighter A subject to criminal/regulatory body fines. At most, they might have breached the code of conduct by the UFC.
Click to expand...

lol. It doesn't matter what the UFC policy is.

It is perfectly legal to bet on yourself to win a fight.

It is not legal at all to bet on your opponent to win in any way.

Literally nothing about your thread title is even remotely accurate. Bookies have whole teams monitoring this stuff. You're insane if you think billion dollar companies are going to let anyone exploit them with match-fixing.
 
xhaydenx said:
lol. It doesn't matter what the UFC policy is.

It is perfectly legal to bet on yourself to win a fight.

It is not legal at all to bet on your opponent to win in any way.
Click to expand...

Do you know which gaming commission rule it would be violating to bet on your opponent?

I'm not talking about taking money from someone to throw a fight. I'm just talking about placing a wager on a opponent. I haven't found anything that would make such an action illegal.

Granted, it varies state by state, but I haven't found anything for California or Nevada.
 
Post 2 Decision said:
It is illegal to bet against yourself

Tae Hyun Bang did it, but he ended up winning

https://www.mmafighting.com/2017/11...l-time-for-involvement-in-fight-fixing-scheme

"Tae Hyun Bang was sentenced to 10 months by the Seoul Central District Court for taking $92,610 (100 million won in South Korea) to throw a fight against Leo Kuntz at UFC Fight Night 79 in Seoul in November 2015, according to the Korea Herald. Three people who gave the money to Bang also got jail terms."
Click to expand...

All that shows is that it's illegal to take money to throw a fight, that would be banned under some of the bribery gambling laws that we have.

I'm not talking about taking money to throw a fight. I'm just talking about placing a wager on your opponent.
 
xhaydenx said:
lol. It doesn't matter what the UFC policy is.

It is perfectly legal to bet on yourself to win a fight.

It is not legal at all to bet on your opponent to win in any way.

Literally nothing about your thread title is even remotely accurate. Bookies have whole teams monitoring this stuff. You're insane if you think billion dollar companies are going to let anyone exploit them with match-fixing.
Click to expand...

Bookies might monitor it very well, it doesn't address whether or not we have rules or regulations in place that would prevent this.
 
JJCc said:
Do you know which gaming commission rule it would be violating to bet on your opponent?

I'm not talking about taking money from someone to throw a fight. I'm just talking about placing a wager on a opponent. I haven't found anything that would make such an action illegal.
Click to expand...

It's criminal law, mate.

Think about what you're talking about here. If this was even remotely easy and not highly illegal, people would be trying to pull it off non-stop.

Bookies offer props for more than just the UFC. Regional orgs get lines too. You don't think some regional can who knows he isn't ever going to make much cash out of MMA wouldn't just instantly get loans and try and pull this off?

Bookies wouldn't be able to stay in business if this stuff was legal.
 
Herwald said:
Imagine betting on your opponent and winning the fight.
Click to expand...
That's the kind of luck I have. I could go in all fucked up ready to be koed stiff, and my opponent would probably just trip blow out an ankle or something
 
JJCc said:
Bookies might monitor it very well, it doesn't address whether or not we have rules or regulations in place that would prevent this.
Click to expand...

Like I said, it's a criminal offense. As in, there literally are rules and regulations that prevent this.

Here in Australia, you can get anywhere up to 10 years in jail for this.

I googled match fixing penalties in America. Here's one of the top results:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/224

5 years jail.

If match fixing was legal, I'd take out massive loans myself, pay people to lose and bet huge on the other guy. I'd be rich as fuck without a doubt lol.
 
You can't legally throw a fight for a bribe or because you bet on your opponent though I don't think any sports book would let you place the bet in the first place but if they did you would get caught. But what people who throw fights do is they have people they know place bets for them for a small percentage of the profit.
 
JJCc said:
All that shows is that it's illegal to take money to throw a fight, that would be banned under some of the bribery gambling laws that we have.

I'm not talking about taking money to throw a fight. I'm just talking about placing a wager on your opponent.
Click to expand...
It is illegal to bet against yourself and purposely lose in pro sports.
 
xhaydenx said:
Like I said, it's a criminal offense. As in, there literally are rules and regulations that prevent this.

Here in Australia, you can get anywhere up to 10 years in jail for this.

I googled match fixing penalties in America. Here's one of the top results:

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/224

5 years jail.

If match fixing was legal, I'd take out massive loans myself, pay people to lose and bet huge on the other guy. I'd be rich as fuck without a doubt lol.
Click to expand...

That's a bribery law. You cannot bribe someone to throw a game. That is very different than a fighter just deciding to bet on their opponent.

Nevada has a similar law to the federal statue, but again it's on bribery.
NRS 207.290 - Sports Bribery Laws in Las Vegas Nevada (shouselaw.com)
 
accolyte1022 said:
I'm pretty sure TS is just trolling (as usual).
Click to expand...

Trolling how? My scenario was very specific, it does not involve third parties, it does not involve bribery.

It involves one situation, where a UFC fighter places a bet on their opponent and nothing more. There is no additional evidence on intent, and the fighter claims they would still fight their heart out.

In such a situation, I can't find anything that a prosecutor could bring the case under. I'd imagine it is highly unlikely a prosecutor could be successful in winning a case. There's a lot of organizations that ban outright gambling in sport events that you are part of (Pete Rose, and baseball). Pete Rose didn't break any laws but he got banned from baseball for it.

UFC doesn't have in place anything, so it's entirely relying on other authorities to prevent these situations, and I don't think there is much.

FYI; Australia already forbid sportsbetting on UFC 196 due to it's fear of fight fixing and the UFC's lack of rules around it.
Betting ban on UFC over integrity issues (smh.com.au)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Forum statistics

Threads
1,236,405
Messages
55,418,206
Members
174,764
Latest member
durbanik916

Share this page

Back
Top