Twice weekly, we’ll comb through as many articles, tweets and podcasts as we can find related to the world of sports betting and daily fantasy sports, and publish the good stuff here.
Stumble upon something you think we should include? Email info@bettingtalk.com.
* * *
Following the rise of e-sports and gambling on e-sports in recent years, we now have a StarCraft match-fixing scandal in South Korea.
The Korean prosecutor’s office leading the StarCraft 2 match-fixing investigation released its report this week, and the results are not good for fans of the sport. One of the game’s greatest players, Lee “Life” Seung Hyun, now stands convicted of match-fixing, as well as another leading player, Bung “Bbyong” Woo Yong.
That’s only half the bad news. The other half is that for those thrown-matches, Life was offered about $60,000. In other words, as TeamLiquid editor Kwanghee Woo pointed out, Life made seven times as much money throwing two games than he would have for winning the entire tournament. This is the kind of gambling money flooding into esports in Korea. With that kind of disparity between what players can make honestly versus what they can make cheating, it seems like guaranteeing StarCraft’s competitive integrity is an uphill battle.
The Golden State Warriors are no longer listed as favorites to win the NBA playoffs after Stephen Curry’s knee injury on Sunday. Before the playoffs began, the Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook had the Warriors as -140 favorites to win it all.
NBA Title after Curry news
Spurs 3/2
Warriors 9/4
Cavaliers 3/1
Thunder 10/1
Clippers 18/1
Raptors 40/1
Heat 50/1
Hawks 50/1
Celtics 80/1— Jeff Sherman (@golfodds) April 25, 2016
UPDATE: Chris Paul broke his hand last night, and now the Warriors are title favorites again.
NBA Champ updated
Warriors 5/4
Spurs 9/5
Cavaliers 3/1
Thunder 12/1
Raptors 30/1
Clippers 60/1
Heat 60/1
Hawks 60/1
Blazers 100/1— Jeff Sherman (@golfodds) April 26, 2016
A recent report says that Raiders owner Mark Davis will pledge to move the team to Las Vegas if a 65,000-seat domed stadium is built. Before that was announced, Matt Youmans of the Las Vegas Review Journal asked local sportsbook directors what the odds are that the Oakland Raiders will move to Las Vegas.
“I think it’s 100 percent a perfect fit,” William Hill sports book director Nick Bogdanovich said. “I hope it happens. But I have no idea. It could be 2-1 or two zillion to one.”
“I still think it’s an extreme long shot to actually happen,” said Sunset Station sports book director Chuck Esposito, who put the odds at 300-1. “I’m going to say the Phillies have a better shot to win the World Series in the next three years.”
Pitcher Shoki Kashara was banned indefinitely by Nippon Professional Baseball (Japan’s highest level of baseball), for betting on his sport last year. He recently spoke about his gambling experience.
“We players were betting money on cards and mahjong in the first place, and our recognition that it was illegal was low,” Kasahara said. “I took part in that.”
Kasahara said the habit of gambling, at the team dorm and in the clubhouse, already existed when he joined the team in 2009, and claimed “¥100,000 (roughly $895) would sometimes change hands on a single bet.”
The 25-year-old, released by Yomiuri along with three other pitchers, revealed he was informed of the odds, or “handicaps,” for games through his mobile phone by a university graduate student and a restaurant owner, both identified as habitual baseball gamblers, which is illegal in Japan.
Kasahara denied betting on his team’s games, or being involved in any match-fixing.
“I didn’t bet (on the Giants’ games), because I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the game,” Kasahara said.
“I didn’t (fix matches), and wouldn’t have been able to do so in the first place. I was relieving most of the time and wasn’t able to tell when I was pitching.”
Russia’s Ministry of Finance proposed a plan to introduce a 10% tax on online betting sales this December.
The 10% tax is on top of the recently announced RUB 2.5m to 3m (US $36,600 to $43,900) fees Russian bookies must pay each of the country’s 12 economic regions in order to accept online wagers from punters in those regions. Bookies have also recently been ordered to pay RUB 60m ($890k) per year to Russian sports federations.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Russian bookmakers have expressed some confusion over what portion of their business will face the new 10% tax. The Ministry’s notice states that the tax applies to ‘sales,’ which most observers are reading as ‘revenue,’ but the actual bill has yet to be published and some bookmakers have suggested the tax will apply to online betting turnover.
Several bookies have gone on record as saying a 10% turnover tax would doom their online operations to unprofitability. Other bookmakers complained that the governm