Match Fixing vs Betting

These things most certainly are not very complicated but it would be easier for me to give a better picture with an example. Consider me as a bookie.
There is a match being played, say Pakistan vs Bangladesh. Now at the bookies head quarter the ratio is decided. Say for Pakistan, it is 1:2 while for Bangladesh it is 1:50. 1:50 means (I do not want to confuse you people) that if there are 50 chances of winning in this match, then Bangladesh has got only 1.

Now, I bet 1000$ on Bangladesh that Bangladesh will win. Its quite simple, if Bangladesh wins, then I will get 50,000$(50 times) and if Bangladesh loses, I'll suffer a loss of only 1000$.

On the other hand, another person invests 1000$ on Pakistan and same principle applies on him. If Pakistan wins, he will get 2000$ (twice the money) and if Pakistan loses, he will lose only 1000$.

This is what we call betting.

Then, what match fixing is? Consider the same ratio. Most of the people will invest their money on Pakistan that Pakistan will going to win this match. Now I invest 5000$ on Bangladesh and also offer Pakistani player say 1000$ each that they should lose the match. This means a total investment of about 20,000$ considering the extra players, coach and manager of the team.

Deal is set and Pakistan loses the match, then I will going to get 250,000$. The people who have invested their money on Pakistan will going to lose all their money.

I hope that you understand what I've tried to say but still if there are some discrepancies or you have some other ideas, you can start a discussion.

I've used Pakistan and Bangladesh as the teams and I appologize to Pakistani and Bangladeshi people for this. The main reason is that, I think rather most of the people think that Pakistan's match against Bangladesh was fixed in the World Cup 99.


source: http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/cricket/44527