Rigging Professional Sports

[Adam Mac]

Do you believe that this happens? How come there are meaningless layups at the end of the game to switch who wins the spread? How can one NBA team look so good at home and so bad on the road in every series of the playoffs? What are your thoughts on pro sports being rigged?

[NoNonsenseCoach]

Maybe I'm naive and believe to much in the integrity of the game, but I don't believe professional sports are rigged. Athletes get paid enough, and how big of a bet would someone have to place that their payout would be significantly more than what they had to pay off a whole team of players?

[Adam Mac]

I never used to think so but I can't say I'm 100% anymore that there is no "funny business" going on.

[animal52]

I never used to think so but I can't say I'm 100% anymore that there is no "funny business" going on.

I don't think that players or coaches do anything to impact games. I agree with NNC that they make way too much money, everybody would need to be involved and informed, and there is no way something like that could be kept secret.

Having said that, I do believe that each sport has its own interests and those interests can be impacted by the use of referees, like in basketball. The ref that was caught gambling was directly involved in the Spurs/ Suns fiasco last year.

I was told 3 years ago that David Stern made sure that the Pistons would lose to the Heat in the playoffs because Detroit played a too boring slow down style of basketball and that a Shaq / D-Wade Heat would pull down better ratings. The Pistons then let Ben Wallace go so that they could let Flip Saunders implement a more exciting style of play.

So, yes and no.

[Adam Mac]

Plaers are making way to much money nowadays... it's going to get to the point where teams won't want the #1 pick overall because it will cost to much to sign a kid that's never played professionally before