In football, ghost game refers to a betting scam wherein people are being deceived or accessories to taking bets on a match that never happened. This phenomenon is linked to criminals that are seeking to defraud the betting industry and its clients through corruption and illegal activities. With this incident, it has recently been a hot topic.
How Ghost Game Works
In areas where live television coverage or video streaming is not accessible, there are betting scouts that will do the reporting to any key event during the game. As the game unfolds, bookmakers can adjust the price that is being advertised. Matches are often from the lower-level divisions. The betting firms rely heavily on the low-paid betting scout for any details about the match where they base their odds on. Although it is hard to imagine putting too much faith in the betting scout, this is a common practice. Whatever data that they will receive, the illegal betting group manipulates the result and would pose advertisements of a friendly game for people to bet on.For ghost games, the money made from those “supposedly” matches is comparatively smaller as compared to the overall size of the betting market. Hence, they are harder to detect and be monitored. This loophole made it attractive to any kind of illegal behavior. A person with ill-intent would look into the vulnerabilities of an area and start collecting bets on individuals that are not familiar with sports betting.
For years the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) had been aware of such illegal activities. In 2014, the ICSS looked into an incident wherein they received a report of a friendly match between Ulisses Yerevan FC and FC Gandzasar. However, sources from both teams confirmed that the two teams were on a training camp and that no friendly match took place.