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The Tennis Racket
- jsvine 11y agoLayperson methodology here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/johntemplon/how-we-used-data-to-investigate-match-fixing-in-tennis http://www.buzzfeed.com/johntemplon/how-we-used-data-to-inve... Detailed methodology/code here: https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-01-tennis-betting-analysis https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-01-tennis-betting-analy...
- jstanley 11y agoWow, this is really good to see. Buzzfeed have wildly exceeded my expectations here.
- jitl 11y agoBuzzFeed's model seems to be "start with the low end, work our way up". They're using listicles to pay for this sort of awesome reporting.
- ssharp 11y agoIt will be interesting to see how successful Buzzfeed is at maintaining both models -- a huge array of clickbait, low-quality, traffic-driving (and revenue driving, I'd venture) content, and also a investigative journalism unit doing this type of work. If Buzzfeed is committed to this and has the financials to support it, I think they'll eventually win people over. Al Jazeera America never really had the time to establish itself as a respectable journalistic unit. Their recent report on Peyton Manning having HGH shipped to his house was met with a fair amount of skepticism, just based on what news outlet reported it. They folded their American division a week or two later. I'd guess the same thing will happen with people questioning Buzzfeed's reporting based solely on what Buzzfeed is generally associated with. But if they can persevere that and continue to produce quality investigative reporting like this, the mainstream will eventually have to accept them.
- Angostura 11y agoIt is interesting that the BBC seems to have taken Buzzfeed to its heart. You quite often hear Buzzfeed editors being interviewed on Radio 4 news shows, or indeed presenting shows in the same positions that have hitherto been reserved for newspaper journalists. This too, seems to be jointly credited as Buzzfeed/BBC.
- chishaku 11y agoThey're using listicles and $200+ million in funding.
- tacos 11y agoThey're trying... "Headquartered in [BuzzFeed's] new San Francisco bureau, The Open Lab for Journalism Technology and the Arts will be dedicated to coming up with new tools and technology that will benefit reporting and journalism" http://www.wired.com/2015/05/buzzfeed-founder-launches-new-lab-open-source-invention/ http://www.wired.com/2015/05/buzzfeed-founder-launches-new-l...
- dang 11y agoRelated BBC article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921349 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10921349.
- jnsaff2 11y agoA few years ago a friend of mine wrote a paper on a related issue in tennis: http://www.playthegame.org/fileadmin/image/knowledgebank/Tennisdraws_Katarina_Pijetlovic.pdf http://www.playthegame.org/fileadmin/image/knowledgebank/Ten...
- roymurdock 11y agoSummary: draws were hand-crafted by tournament organizers in order to up the likelihood that Federer and Nadal would meet in the finals which would increase viewership and be great for advertisers and sponsors. Insinuation that Nike was somehow in on it seems a bit far-fetched and the tennis landscape has changed a fair bit since the paper was written, but the statistics for the time periods and draws examined are pretty damning.
- lifeisstillgood 11y agotl;dr: Top tennis matches have been fixed, we have the evidence. Importance: 1. This is from BuzzFeed News ("""BuzzFeed News began its investigation after devising an algorithm to analyse gambling on professional tennis matches over the past seven years.""") This is a tiny marker of the emergence of the new promised data-led journalism. And its coming from a new kind of news outlet that has separated its journalism from its business model (its not about click-bait headlines for ads, its about providing marketing data or something?) Who knew. Good for BuzzFeed 2. Good grief! If Tennis is dirty, then we can happily say that all major sports are dirty. Cycling and Atheltics has dopers, football is just wrecked, I think we shall see all major sports get hit soon. F1 crashes anyone?
- adhipg 11y agoTalking about F1 crashes there was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Formula_One_crash_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_Formula_One_crash_cont...
- gadders 11y agoI heard this story being announced on the BBC this morning. When they said it was a joint investigation with "Buzzfeed News" I nearly choked on my toothbrush.
- moron4hire 11y agoI played a lot of sports when I was a kid, but the last few years have taught me to hate the phrase, "Sports builds character." I can only hope I can pass on a love for sport to my child, while avoiding the adoration of sports celebrities (major or minor, we all have our local heroes) that led to my eventual disenchantment[0], contributing to my sedentary lifestyle that I hope he never has. [0] 15 years and 40 lbs ago, I was a semipro martial artist. It's hard to get into any school when you have a prejudice against martial arts school owners of a certain extremely common type of school. Ethics isn't a strong point for most people.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago>Sports builds character. >Ethics isn't a strong point for most people. If you want ethics, professional sports really may not be the best place to find them. The reality is that many sports are closely linked to large-scale betting rings which buy results, and a few have much closer links to organised crime.
- joosters 11y agoI remember that corrupt match between Arguello & Davydenko. Betfair's forums were ablaze with speculation as people watched the ridiculous odds movements before and during the match. It's appalling that the tennis authorities did nothing about the corruption, you will never see a more blatant attempt to cash on a fixed match. (In time, the fixers would learn to not be so obvious in their betting).
- chillydawg 11y agoI worked at betfair at the time. A couple of my colleagues had noticed and were also following the obviously rogue money. They weren't looking at customer betting, they were just observing that far too much money was being traded laying the favourite and copied, as it was obvious there was a fix.
- joosters 11y agoIt's ironic that Betfair seems to have the industry-leading fraud & corruption team, when their business model means that they are the least directly affected by betting corruption. If only the sports bodies would listen to them, instead of burying their heads in the sand.
- chillydawg 11y agoThey developed all sorts of automated and human-assisted fraud alerting systems. I worked on a couple of them. No details, obviously, but they were good. If the authorities were not doing anything, it was not Betfair's fault.
- phillc73 11y agoBetfair (and the other exchanges) need to have the best fraud and corruption teams to ensure the integrity of their marketplace. As it is possible to lay results on an exchange, it does present ideal opportunity for nefarious betting activity. With a traditional bookmaker, it's extremely difficult to consistently win large amounts over time and multiple events. The bookmakers just close or severely limit winning accounts. On an exchange, there's no incentive to limit these winning accounts, whether they're backing or laying. The marketplace needs liquidity. However, I still think the government(s) who issue gambling licenses may at some point take a view that betting exchanges are no longer legal business ventures, if there is too much evidence of corrupt betting, especially on the lay side. You may think that once the genie is out of the bottle, there's no way for a government to put it back again by banning or de-licensing exchanges. The exchange just moves offshore to Malta. However, I believe the current Authorised Betting Partner (ABP)[0] debacle happening in British horse racing is evidence that industry bodies could make it very difficult in the future for offshore bookmakers/exchanges to market themselves effectively. Anyway, my point is, that it's really in Betfair's own self interest to be so hot on fraud and corruption, when they provide (unlicensed) people the ability to lay bets and that the legitimacy of exchanges may be called into question at any time. A prime example of this is what happened to Intrade.[1] [0] http://www.britishhorseracing.com/press_releases/british-racing-to-establish-authorised-betting-partners/ http://www.britishhorseracing.com/press_releases/british-rac... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrade
- unfamiliar 11y agoWhy is the list of "16 players" not being published?
- ChicagoBoy11 11y ago"BuzzFeed News and the BBC have chosen not to name the players whose matches have repeatedly been flagged for attracting highly suspicious betting, because without access to phone, bank, or computer records it is not possible to prove a link between the players and the gamblers. The integrity unit has the power to demand all that evidence from any tennis professional, yet many of the individuals whose activity attracted the most serious concern are still playing at a high level."
- masmullin 11y agobecause then it's libel.
- blowski 11y agoWhile I love the fact that a native new media organisation like BuzzFeed is doing genuine investigative journalism, I don't understand why they feel compelled to use stupid animated gifs all over the page. e.g. http://www.buzzfeed.com/johntemplon/how-we-used-data-to-investigate-match-fixing-in-tennis http://www.buzzfeed.com/johntemplon/how-we-used-data-to-inve... You can't imagine Bob Woodward of the Washington Post publishing the Watergate investigations with random cartoons interspersed throughout the content.
- nols 11y agoThat's the silly summary, there's a much better one here https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-01-tennis-betting-analysis https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-01-tennis-betting-analy...
- blowski 11y agoI just don't understand why they need a silly summary. It makes it hard to take BuzzFeed seriously as an authoritative news source.
- Avshalom 11y agoWe're the adults now and we* get to decide what that means. It's not an easy change to affect I know but we* can be authoritative and well researched and right and have gifs of getting hit by tennis balls at the same time. It's one thing if those gifs are trying to use an appeal to emotions to paper over weak logic/arguments/data but in this case they don't really do anything--which also yes does mean they could be removed without loss too. *we: that is the hypothetical we, I am in no way associated with buzzfeed
- MiddleEndian 11y agoAs an adult, I prefer my news without animations everywhere. It's one of the reasons I read news online rather than watch TV news.
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- skhro87 11y agoWhat buzzfeed did is nothing new. A lot of people in the betting "scene" observe obviously fixed matches on a regular basis, mainly in football but also in tennis. Some are extremely obvious, some are less. The main is that organisations such as FIFA, don't seem to care really. They are talking about having dedicated systems etc in place, yet there are obvious fixes going on quite often and rarely such cases will be investigated. As someone else mentioned, Davydenko is a classic.
- rickdale 11y agoI remember back in 2007 when Davydenko got accused of being part of a betting scheme. He said, "Its 2007, there is no mafia in Russia."
- at-fates-hands 11y agoIronic considering the mid 2000's had some of the most Russian born players on the tour. If you're the Russian mob, you're seeing nothing but dollar signs everywhere.
- stplsd 11y agoCommon, Davydenko incident is already in betting folklore and have been excessively documented. Where are the other names in top 50?
- bradleypowers 11y agoWas anyone else disappointed that this wasn't an article about the engineering behind the tennis racket?
- at-fates-hands 11y agoThere was an article back in 2014 that examined the same thing. I dare to venture Grantland's reporting is bit better than the click bait Buzzfeed is: http://grantland.com/features/tennis-gambling-match-fixing-indian-wells-potential/ http://grantland.com/features/tennis-gambling-match-fixing-i...
- rurban 11y agoI investigated a bit this list for the officially banned players, but didn't do the sha256 matching yet for the rumored players. Should be easy though. https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/41fpeq/tennis_match_fixing_evidence_of_suspected_match/cz2kfee https://www.reddit.com/r/tennis/comments/41fpeq/tennis_match... Cracking the sha256 hashes like this, but still haven't confirmed anyone new: https://gist.github.com/rurban/2f1eabc751ebdc3cd056 https://gist.github.com/rurban/2f1eabc751ebdc3cd056
- chatmasta 11y agoHow do you know Buzzfeed did not use a random salt along with the hash?
- toomanybeersies 11y agoThey have used a salt, they mention it on the repo.
- rurban 11y agoYeah I saw that. I'm brute forcing it now... perl is a bit too slow for 12-16 chars, so I'm rewriting it in pony. I assume a known plaintext of a popular player who should be in the top 4. And I'm assuming the spelling from the ATP rankins.
- chatmasta 11y agoA much simpler way of de-anonymizing the results would be to "match" (lol) the stats to real players. For example, which player who first appeared in 2005 and has played 15 matches, faced off against another player who first appeared in 2007 and has played 5 matches?
- pbreit 11y agoBuzzfeed continues to impress. The other new content type I am really liking from BF is the "Tasty" cooking videos: https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/ https://www.facebook.com/buzzfeedtasty/ Well-done, easy to consume, perfect for social sharing.
- unabridged 11y agoThe only way to stop this is to align incentives. The ATP (or whichever league) should open its own sanctioned betting market, then give the winning player a percentage of the pool. If they can capture a significant amount of the betting and give a reasonable percentage to the winning player, it will become very expensive (and hopefully not profitable) to fix a match.
- jonknee 11y agoOr police it strictly and enforce lifetime bans on dirty players. It's not worth a $50k payday to throw a match if it's risking all of your future income.
- genericpseudo 11y agoIPython notebook with all the workings here: https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-01-tennis-betting-analysis/blob/master/notebooks/tennis-analysis.ipynb https://github.com/BuzzFeedNews/2016-01-tennis-betting-analy... Bravo, BuzzFeed.
- seanp2k2 11y agoInteresting how many people care about the authenticity and integrity of sport when it's just entertainment. Wrestling matches are fixed and orchestrated, but it's still popular.
- marshray 11y agoBecause people invest their own time and enthusiasm in spectating, and sometimes amateur participation, and they don't want their sport to degenerate into a farce like American professional wrestling.