Matchmaking in a casino or esports? Competition manipulation worries everywhere

Competition manipulation means any act or omission intended to influence the course or outcome of a sporting competition.

For example, players may have agreed among themselves to set up one team to win because it would mean big wins for bettors who bet on the opposing team.

The players do this not out of the goodness of their hearts but because of the rewards promised to them for such a match.

Competition rigging is a concern everywhere, as it occurs in all sorts of contexts. In this article, we will look first at casinos and then at esports.

In casinos, match-fixing only has an indirect effect

What all online casinos have in common is that they mainly offer games of chance. The outcome of a game of chance is drawn by a random number generator.

As a condition for obtaining a European casino licence, the random number generators for games of chance must be third-party verified.

This ensures that casino staff cannot manipulate the games or influence the outcome.

Examples of games of chance include:

• Slots
• Live spins, i.e. slots played in conjunction with a streamer
• Table games such as roulette and blackjack
• Live casino games such as Monopoly Live and other versions of Wheel of Fortune games
• Netflix
• Lottery
• Keno
• Bingo

It is therefore not possible to manipulate the competition when it comes to games of chance. The situation is different for poker and betting.

In the case of online poker against other players, it is possible to agree in advance on the outcome of the game. However, poker match fixing is more likely to occur in large poker tournaments.

A casino player is most likely to encounter match fixing when betting. For example, if you notice that a football team has scored 41 own goals in a short period of time - as happened in South Africa in 2022 - you should suspect foul play.

Competition manipulation in e-sports is an existing problem

Where there is sport, there is betting - and where there is betting, there can also be competitive manipulation, i.e. match-fixing.

Competition manipulation in e-sport on an international level is breaking the news barrier in Finland as well, as usual.

For example, in 2021, Valorant professionals in Singapore were punished for match-fixing with a three-year ban.

This was also reported in Finland, as were the Counter-Strike players in 2014 who were banned for life (although this was overturned in August 2017).

The corona era boosted the popularity of e-sports. Prize pools, too, have risen from hundreds of thousands to millions of euros in a short space of time.

Sponsorship - and soccer games - have grown at the same pace. Match-fixing also involves players themselves by placing bets on either legal or illegal betting sites.

It should also be remembered that in e-sports you can also bet on in-game goods, i.e. skins.

Match-fixing also occurs in skin betting. For example, in 2014, a sports betting scandal was reported in the US, where players made a multi-thousand dollar fortune by betting on skins.

Several suspicions of competition manipulation in Finland

In Finland, everything is often thought to be honest, transparent and free of corruption, but there are several suspicions of competition manipulation in ball sports, for example.

The Finnish Sports Ethics Centre (SUEK) reported that between summer 2023 and autumn 2024, it received more than 40 suspicious betting or competition manipulation tip-offs in the men's football K2 and K3 competitions.

According to the experts, the matches were 100% certain to have been manipulated.

Criminal organisations could have made more than €1 million from match-fixing involving a Finnish football club. Veikkaus is not involved in the scandal, as most of the dubious betting takes place on the Asian grey market, for example.

According to the SUEK website, every operator has a reporting obligation if it detects match-fixing or attempts at match-fixing. This also applies to electronic sports.

In all cases, competition manipulation is not a punishable offence under criminal law. This is the case, for example, if the tampering was done for the sole purpose of sporting success. The sanction for such an offence is a matter for the internal disciplinary systems of the sport.

Esport is still a marginal sport in Finland. The clubs and competitions are international, so there is no evidence of significant Finnish competition manipulation in this sport, at least for the time being. The authorities, Veikkaus and the sports industry are monitoring the situation.

Summary

Competition manipulation means, for example, that two teams agree in advance on the outcome of a match or that a player bets on his team/team he represents to lose and then deliberately loses.

Match-fixing also occurs in electronic sports. There has been quite a lot of news coverage in Finland over the last 10 years of international competition manipulation in e-sports.

This may only increase as the popularity of e-sport has been on the rise. At the same time, the prize money for competitions, sponsorship revenues from eSports and the amounts involved in betting on eSports have increased.

Bettors are also followed by criminals seeking financial gain through match-fixing. The good news is that the role of foreign casinos in Finland is likely to become more stable in the coming years.

An increase in sponsorship revenues or even the ownership of a betting company would stabilise the financial position of sports teams, which could reduce the willingness to agree to match-fixing.