Manipulation in Sport: Historical Evidence and Economic Analysis

Results in sport are usually based on skill rather than chance, but skill can be offset by manipulation. The use of this term to describe cheating in sport is of relatively recent origin, but the practices involved—match-fixing, performance-enhancing drugs, constitutive rule-breaking, and other illegal ways of influencing the results of a sports competition—have a long history (For an overview see Huggins (2018)). Sport has never been pure. Going back two millennia or more to the Ancient Olympics, the host of bronze statues honouring Zeus that lined the path through the sacred grove into the Olympic Stadium were paid for from the fines levied on athletes for lying, bribing opponents and officials, and cheating during the competition (Kyle, 2014, p. 26). Moving into the Middle Ages, the chivalry that modern times attribute to knightly behaviour was not always historically accurate and rules (with punishments for infringements) had to be introduced to control their actions in the melées and tournaments during which horses, equipment and men could be captured and held for ransom by the winning side (Fallows, Rules and order. In N. Fallows (Ed.), A cultural history of sport in the medieval age (pp. 113–140). Bloomsbury, 2021). Advocates of staunch amateurism might take solace in that both Greek athletes and medieval knights are now regarded as being professional sportsmen (Vamplew, Early commercialisation in sport: Looking for Evidence and searching for meaning. Idrottsforum.org 2021-10-18, 2021a, Bread and circuses, olive oil and money: Commercialised sport in Ancient Greece and Rome. International Journal of the History of Sport, 39 (6), 589–608, 2022). Even more rules and regulations to prevent cheating (usually in reaction to it having happened) accompanied the significant move of gambling into sport from the Enlightenment onwards: the gambling industry wanted fairness, but not necessarily individual gamblers who desired an edge in the market (Huggins, Associativity, gambling, and the rise of Protomodern British sport, 1660–1800. Journal of Sport History, 47 (1), 1–17, 2020; Vamplew, Playing with the rules: Influences on the development of regulation in sport, International Journal of the History of Sport, 24 (7), 843–871, 2007). Corruption in elite cricket became so rife that the MCC, the ruling body of the game, banned bookmakers from Lord’s, the acknowledged headquarters of the sport (Underdown, Start of play: Cricket and culture in eighteenth-century England. : Allen Lane, 2000, pp. 163–165).