Professional Cheating

Cheating, whether or not we’d like to admit it, affects the lives of everyone on a daily basis. Whether it’s copying another person’s answers on an exam, taking a candy bar from the drug store, or committing insider trading on Wall Street, it seems like most people will do anything and everything to get ahead in life…even at risk of being disgraced by their whole country.

But how can cheating be proven? Unless there is exact evidence of the crime being committed, how can we say for sure that there was something fishy going on? Cheating has happened in the past…doesn’t history tend to repeat itself? In 1919 the Chicago White Socks were found to be throwing games as part of a deal with the mafia. Sumo wrestlers in Japan have been discovered to have ties to the Yakuza, and have been mysteriously killed before they planned to reveal their secrets. Boxers have been known to throw fights and make some money on the side. Even at the Olympics, the pinnacle of all sporting events, judges have been caught exchanging votes so that both of their countries would medal. Even Marlon Brando could have been a contender if it wasn’t for cheating.

Recently I have been reading a great book called “Freakonomics” by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. In the first chapter they discuss cheating in sumo wrestling matches in Japan. In Japan, sumo wrestling is a BIG deal (pun intended). People all over the country go crazy for the sport and sumo wrestlers gain celebrity statuses depending on how well they do. Their status is measured by their performance in several 15-day tournaments in which they compete once each day. At the end of the tournament, if their record has more wins than losses, then they move up in the ranks. From this it is plain to see that someone entering the 15^th day of the tournament with a record of 7-7 has a lot more to gain than someone who is 9-5 or 8-6.

Through some intense analysis, a 7-7 wrestler had about a 48% chance of winning the final fight against an 8-6 based on data from previous fights between the 2 competitors. This makes sense intuitively because someone who is 7-7 should be slightly worse than someone who is 8-6. However, during the actual fights, the wrestler who was 7-7 won about 79% of the final day fights. Now, you might say that this number is high because the wrestlers who were 7-7 tried harder and wanted to win more. However, in their next meeting, the winning percentage of the 7-7 wrestler falls to 20% against the same competitor he beat. Combine all of this data with the fact that anytime the media questions wrestlers suspected of cheating, their winning percentage returns down to about 50% the next time they compete and you have pretty substantial proof of cheating.

It is very tedious, but besides being caught in the act, this may be the only somewhat reliable evidence of cheating in sports. If sumo wrestlers in Japan are willing to put their honor and careers on the line to cheat in the nation’s biggest sport, then why would it be so much of a stretch to believe that other sports have similar forms of dishonesty. When you’re dealing with multi-billion dollar corporations, you have to believe that they are aware of what maximizes profits. Hopefully one day it will be possible to perform this kind of analysis on American sports.