Alright so you’re on Rivalry and looking for a match to bet on, but can’t find it. Why is that? Is it because the Rivalry staff are lazy and just decided not to add it? Is it a bug? Nope, neither!
Sometimes, we’ll be aware of a match but choose not to offer betting on it. This can happen for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons is integrity concerns.
Integrity? What’s that?
We only want people to bet on matches that are played fairly where all participants are trying their best to win the match. And unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen.
When wouldn’t match participants be trying their best?
There are many reasons and we’ll dive into a few below!
Match Does Not Matter
Sometimes, the outcome of a match doesn’t matter that much for one or both of the participants. For example, sometimes tournaments are played as qualifiers to larger events. You might have 16 teams competing with the top 2 advancing to another event. There could be a situation where a team has already qualified but is still scheduled to play a match. They may not have incentive to try their best since they’ve already advanced. In some situations, a match is played and both teams are already qualified. Instead of trying their best, they goof around.
In situations like these, we may choose not to offer this match on Rivalry. It would be a pretty bad experience for you to bet on your favorite team only to have them not try their best and lose.
Match Throwing
We wish match throwing didn’t exist but unfortunately it sometimes does. Occasionally, you will get a player or an entire team not trying their best in order to deliver a certain outcome (such as throwing the first kill, etc) which creates winning bets for themselves or for others who are in on the ‘secret’.
This happens more frequently when there’s not as much on the line. You wouldn’t expect a football team to do this in the World Cup. Nor would you expect someone to do this in the finals of League of Legends Worlds.
But when teams are playing for a $500 prize pool and they could potentially make $10,000 by match throwing, some will sadly choose to participate in match throwing. There’s extreme risk for them here as it could be the end of their career. But some decide to take that risk.
Low or No Integrity? No Bets.
Rivalry and other sportsbook operators have partnered with ESIC, IBIA and other organizations to share information with each other on suspicious betting behavior to help identify integrity issues.
When we believe the integrity of an upcoming match is low, we may decide not to offer it on our site to help guarantee you have a fair, fun betting experience.
