Spot Betting and Spot Fixing
With fresh allegations of corruption in the cricket world emerging in the News of the World newspaper on Sunday (and being reported across all television and radio media channels) the phrases ‘spot betting’ and ‘spot fixing’ have received more widespread public usage in the UK than ever before. Unfortunately, those who are not experienced sports betting fans might well conclude that the spot betting and spot fixing terms are synonymous, when in fact this is not the case at all. For those who need an explanation of the difference between spot betting and spot fixing (and it is a very important one) we are more than happy to oblige…
Spot betting is a term that refers to betting on specific aspects of a sporting event. It isn’t anywhere near as popular as traditional betting in the UK, but is very popular overseas. One example of spot betting that has been making headlines all over the world in recent weeks is the ability to bet on the number of no-balls that are bowled in a cricket match, and even on when those no-balls will be bowled, but spot betting opportunities also exist in other sports. You could bet on the number of corners in a football match, or the number of fouls, for example.
Whatever type of spot betting opportunity a person takes advantage of, making accurate spot betting predictions is ordinarily very challenging, so if a person manages to do so it can obviously be very lucrative. It is this huge profit potential that is particularly attractive to criminal elements, which leads us to our definition of the spot fixing term.
Spot fixing is the criminal act of paying a competitive sportsperson to deliberately act in a way that enables the criminal to land winning spot bets. Again, the example that has been in the news recently concerns cricket players on the Pakistan national team that have allegedly agreed to bowl no-balls at specific times, allowing the bettor to make huge profits. The term spot fixing is therefore derived from the fact that an element of a game is fixed beforehand to ensure that a profit can be made by spot betting on that same fixed element.
As you can see, spot betting itself is a perfectly acceptable way of betting, whilst spot fixing is an illegal activity, so using the terms interchangeably really isn’t appropriate. Hopefully this distinction will be appreciated by the general public as the sport betting and spot fixing news continues to be discussed, but if you come across anyone who automatically assumes that spot betting is the same as spot fixing, do us all a favour and put them right on the issue. None of us need the betting industry itself to get a bad name because of the illegal actions of a few criminals and corrupt players in the cricketing world.
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