On April 18, the Public Ministry of Goiás (MPGO) carried out an operation to comply with three preventive arrest warrants against people involved in the match-fixing of soccer matches for the benefit of sports betting.
“A few months after the execution of Operation Maximum Penalty to verify alleged manipulations in the B series of the Brazilian Championship, now the Maximum Penalty II comes into play, which seeks to investigate manipulations in the A series and in five state championships”, explains lawyer Filipe Senna, specialist in Gaming Law, partner at Jantalia Advogados.
According to the information obtained by the investigation, the co-opted athletes received amounts between R$ 50,000 and R$ 100,000 to perform certain actions during football matches, such as causing a card to be sent off or committing fouls that resulted in a penalty.
“The operations rekindle an important debate on the regulation of sports betting in Brazil and on the supervision and control of manipulation of results that may occur in Brazilian sports competitions. These manipulations generate collective damage to the country”, warns Senna.
Match-fixing – the situation of bookmakers in this scenario
And the biggest and surprising victims of this situation are the bookmakers. The expert provides an explanation: “Sports bookmakers end up being victims of these manipulations of results, as there is a great difference between the amounts paid in an event whose results were manipulated or not – there is a great dissociation of the statistics verified there”.
“Ordinary consumers are also harmed, as they base themselves on the analysis of an event from the natural circumstance and not from an external interference to manipulate statistics and results of the match”, adds Senna.
In addition, the specialist states that match-fixing “is already addressed in the Statute of the Supporter [Law No. 10671 of May 15, 2003] with a penalty of two to six years in prison for those who manipulate the results – and which covers both players , people from the coaching staff and even referees”.
“With this, the regulation of sports betting can bring new tools to avoid or mitigate these situations of manipulation of results, such as educational instructions for players from the beginning of their career at the base of the teams, and also more rigorous penalties for those who venture to manipulate results”, concludes Filipe Senna.
