How big an issue is match fixing in darts?

[thegentle]

As I'm sure a lot of us on here will know, there's been a big match-fixing scandal in the snooker, something which does rear its ugly head from time to time, which got me thinking, how come it's something we only very rarely hear about in darts? Other than Kyle McKinstry and Wessel Nijman in the Modus during Covid and Gilbert Ulang at the 2017 Worlds, I can't think of anyone getting caught (even though it's been 'strongly suggested' the Barney-Adams in the Modus during Covid was fixed too)

[Greipel]

Chisnall is surely a fixer or has been earlier.

[TheMalteseDart]

Definitely a sport that can be exploited. Only a few players make big money from it. I’d be surprised if any PDC tour card holder would take the risk though.

It’s easier to throw a few dodgy darts and not be caught for it than it is to fix a football game for example. But I’d expect betting patterns to be picked up, and at least darts has a system in place to work against this possibility (The DRA)

I’d assume snooker has a lot more interest from the Far East where a lot of the fixing goes on and darts is probably escaping that interest at the moment

[thegentle]

Definitely a sport that can be exploited. Only a few players make big money from it. I’d be surprised if any PDC tour card holder would take the risk though.

It’s easier to throw a few dodgy darts and not be caught for it than it is to fix a football game for example. But I’d expect betting patterns to be picked up, and at least darts has a system in place to work against this possibility (The DRA)

I’d assume snooker has a lot more interest from the Far East where a lot of the fixing goes on and darts is probably escaping that interest at the moment

Is there no equivalent to the DRA in snooker?! Surely there must be some kind of anti-corruption body, especially as it's a sport which has been plagued by such scandals in the past. A lot of these betting scandals seem to have links to East Asia/South East Asia, where snooker is obviously a lot more popular than darts, but still, as you say, darts could be very easy to manipulate. I wonder if there's anything about snooker as a game which makes itself even easier to manipulate than darts (length of matches perhaps, with more turns and more opportunities to fix a match perhaps?), or whether the issue is mostly geographical, because the obvious incentive to fix a game is money and the money earned in the pro game seems fairly similar in both sports

[thegentle]

I suppose on the topic of geography, there are a lot of players on tour from China, but if you are coming all that way, you really don't want to be living off scraps in an unfamiliar country, in darts there are nowhere near the same numbers of non-Europeans on the main tour (and even among them is Whitlock who has been based in Hampshire for ages)

[Safc]

Chisnall is surely a fixer or has been earlier.

Don't be daft he isn't clever enough

[thegentle]

Chisnall is surely a fixer or has been earlier.

Don't be daft he isn't clever enough

If I were a match fixer I wouldn't approach someone with a throw like Chizzy's in a million years

[Captain Hobo]

Chisnall is surely a fixer or has been earlier.

Don't be daft he isn't clever enough

Reminds me of Herschelle Gibbs. Hansie Cronje offered him $15,000 to make less than 20 in an ODI and he forgot to get out and ended up making 74.

[Captain Hobo]

I suppose on the topic of geography, there are a lot of players on tour from China, but if you are coming all that way, you really don't want to be living off scraps in an unfamiliar country, in darts there are nowhere near the same numbers of non-Europeans on the main tour (and even among them is Whitlock who has been based in Hampshire for ages)

Liang Wenbo is alleged to have been the main player involved in the current scandal. His career peaked about 2016 and he would have earned very little in the last 3 years on tour. Plus he's been suspended for assaulting his girlfriend and had legal fees for that. He's probably skint or in debt.

We need to wait to hear the outcome of that but I don't really think the problem is as widespread as it seems right now.

[Captain Hobo]

I'd say match fixing is a very small problem in the PDC right now. Why would a TC holder risk it?

I also assume there is not massive amounts of betting going on in Asia where the PDC can't monitor like they can in the UK.

Probably the biggest danger is an international Qualifier in the Worlds First Round or a World Series event, but I guess those markets are heavily scrutinised and suspicious patterns would be easy to spot.

[Jimmi]

Ask Barney how to get away with it

[TheMalteseDart]

Definitely a sport that can be exploited. Only a few players make big money from it. I’d be surprised if any PDC tour card holder would take the risk though.

It’s easier to throw a few dodgy darts and not be caught for it than it is to fix a football game for example. But I’d expect betting patterns to be picked up, and at least darts has a system in place to work against this possibility (The DRA)

I’d assume snooker has a lot more interest from the Far East where a lot of the fixing goes on and darts is probably escaping that interest at the moment

Is there no equivalent to the DRA in snooker?! Surely there must be some kind of anti-corruption body, especially as it's a sport which has been plagued by such scandals in the past. A lot of these betting scandals seem to have links to East Asia/South East Asia, where snooker is obviously a lot more popular than darts, but still, as you say, darts could be very easy to manipulate. I wonder if there's anything about snooker as a game which makes itself even easier to manipulate than darts (length of matches perhaps, with more turns and more opportunities to fix a match perhaps?), or whether the issue is mostly geographical, because the obvious incentive to fix a game is money and the money earned in the pro game seems fairly similar in both sports

There probably is, I don't follow snooker though. I'm sure Bob, Ross knows

[PT13]

Even if you're match fixing, there are most likely some legs that you are "supposed to win" and there's no way to guarantee that you'll hit the doubles that you need.

[The Thorn]

Definitely a sport that can be exploited. Only a few players make big money from it. I’d be surprised if any PDC tour card holder would take the risk though.

It’s easier to throw a few dodgy darts and not be caught for it than it is to fix a football game for example. But I’d expect betting patterns to be picked up, and at least darts has a system in place to work against this possibility (The DRA)

I’d assume snooker has a lot more interest from the Far East where a lot of the fixing goes on and darts is probably escaping that interest at the moment

Is there no equivalent to the DRA in snooker?! Surely there must be some kind of anti-corruption body, especially as it's a sport which has been plagued by such scandals in the past. A lot of these betting scandals seem to have links to East Asia/South East Asia, where snooker is obviously a lot more popular than darts, but still, as you say, darts could be very easy to manipulate. I wonder if there's anything about snooker as a game which makes itself even easier to manipulate than darts (length of matches perhaps, with more turns and more opportunities to fix a match perhaps?), or whether the issue is mostly geographical, because the obvious incentive to fix a game is money and the money earned in the pro game seems fairly similar in both sports

There probably is, I don't follow snooker though. I'm sure Bob, Ross knows

Does he fuck!

[Captain Hobo]

Definitely a sport that can be exploited. Only a few players make big money from it. I’d be surprised if any PDC tour card holder would take the risk though.

It’s easier to throw a few dodgy darts and not be caught for it than it is to fix a football game for example. But I’d expect betting patterns to be picked up, and at least darts has a system in place to work against this possibility (The DRA)

I’d assume snooker has a lot more interest from the Far East where a lot of the fixing goes on and darts is probably escaping that interest at the moment

Is there no equivalent to the DRA in snooker?! Surely there must be some kind of anti-corruption body, especially as it's a sport which has been plagued by such scandals in the past. A lot of these betting scandals seem to have links to East Asia/South East Asia, where snooker is obviously a lot more popular than darts, but still, as you say, darts could be very easy to manipulate. I wonder if there's anything about snooker as a game which makes itself even easier to manipulate than darts (length of matches perhaps, with more turns and more opportunities to fix a match perhaps?), or whether the issue is mostly geographical, because the obvious incentive to fix a game is money and the money earned in the pro game seems fairly similar in both sports

There probably is, I don't follow snooker though. I'm sure Bob, Ross knows

WPBSA

[thegentle]

I suppose on the topic of geography, there are a lot of players on tour from China, but if you are coming all that way, you really don't want to be living off scraps in an unfamiliar country, in darts there are nowhere near the same numbers of non-Europeans on the main tour (and even among them is Whitlock who has been based in Hampshire for ages)

Liang Wenbo is alleged to have been the main player involved in the current scandal. His career peaked about 2016 and he would have earned very little in the last 3 years on tour. Plus he's been suspended for assaulting his girlfriend and had legal fees for that. He's probably skint or in debt.

We need to wait to hear the outcome of that but I don't really think the problem is as widespread as it seems right now.

Yep, Liang seems like an absolute piece of work, it does seem like he's the main one behind it, and that most of the others are either getting done for much more minor offenses or for failing to report approaches. It seems this particular group of incidents have been going on for a while, I was very disappointed to hear that Yan Bingtao was involved as he's a very high-profile name who has won the Masters, although it did become a bit more understandable to hear that his alleged incident is supposed to have happened a while ago before he really cracked the big time

[thegentle]

I'd say match fixing is a very small problem in the PDC right now. Why would a TC holder risk it?

I also assume there is not massive amounts of betting going on in Asia where the PDC can't monitor like they can in the UK.

Probably the biggest danger is an international Qualifier in the Worlds First Round or a World Series event, but I guess those markets are heavily scrutinised and suspicious patterns would be easy to spot.

I mean, if you're a bottom feeder in the PDC, the obvious answer is money, they won't be making much, if indeed any more money from the game than Nijman and McKinstry. I like what snooker are doing in guaranteeing every tour card holder a grant of £20,000 (reducing any money they've won from it), you'd like to think with a bit more financial security, hopefully the lesser players won't have their head turned as much, I wonder if something like that could be implemented in darts?

Yep, possibly the biggest such case in recent years is Gilbert Ulang, I don't know the ins and outs of that case, but it's probably not surprising that he's from South East Asia

[The Thorn]

Ulang was a good player shame he got over himself before darts really took off in the Philippines. Now they have a lot of good names such as Ilagan, Malicdem, Nebrida and Perez

[sennafan24]

Definitely a sport that can be exploited. Only a few players make big money from it. I’d be surprised if any PDC tour card holder would take the risk though.

It’s easier to throw a few dodgy darts and not be caught for it than it is to fix a football game for example. But I’d expect betting patterns to be picked up, and at least darts has a system in place to work against this possibility (The DRA)

I’d assume snooker has a lot more interest from the Far East where a lot of the fixing goes on and darts is probably escaping that interest at the moment

Is there no equivalent to the DRA in snooker?! Surely there must be some kind of anti-corruption body, especially as it's a sport which has been plagued by such scandals in the past. A lot of these betting scandals seem to have links to East Asia/South East Asia, where snooker is obviously a lot more popular than darts, but still, as you say, darts could be very easy to manipulate. I wonder if there's anything about snooker as a game which makes itself even easier to manipulate than darts (length of matches perhaps, with more turns and more opportunities to fix a match perhaps?), or whether the issue is mostly geographical, because the obvious incentive to fix a game is money and the money earned in the pro game seems fairly similar in both sports

There probably is, I don't follow snooker though. I'm sure Bob, Ross knows

Does he fuck!

[The Thorn]

32 minutes in here it's funny as fuck