Today's Blind Items - Money Talks

I think maybe once or twice a year, I start a blind off by saying something to the point of my jaw dropped when I heard it. It doesn't happen often at all. The thing is though, I guess it really shouldn't have shocked me. Games in sports have been frequently fixed and if there is enough money involved, why couldn't something else be fixed. You would never have thought the entire McDonald's Monopoly game could be fixed for a decade, but it was. Too many security protocols in place. There are never too many if there is a lot of money to be made.

For a long time, bookmakers have taken bets on the results of certain award shows. One of the first few years there was online betting for a certain award show is when this all happened. It caught the online bookmakers by surprise when they finally realized what was going on. Instead of taking the bet off the board though, they quickly lowered the odds as fast as they could without giving away the fact they knew there was inside information somewhere. What they also did was make the favorite a longer shot which the general public then started betting because everyone knew it was going to win. Boy were they wrong.

Apparently to fix the result in this race actually only took the bribing of two people. That is it. The amount of money they were supposed to have been given is $500K each. They each received their upfront money of $250K, but nobody knows if they got the second half of the payment. Also, it isn't like they could go complain to someone if they didn't.

When the betting line opened for this particular award, the favorite was almost even money. That is pretty rare for this award. The second favorite was basically a long shot and opened in some places at 15/1 but most had it about 10/1. The people fixing this particular award were smart. Throughout the month of betting they did small bets. They did a lot of small bets, but nothing that would trigger any alarms. They managed to bet about $500K at this higher odds without ever betting more than $100 at a time. Meanwhile, so many people were betting on the favorite that neither line budged. Then, with three days left before the award, the fixers bet another $500K almost at once spread across the numerous sites that had wagers on the award. Alarms went off on all these sites and the decision they made was to dramatically lower the odds on this particular nominee while raising the odds on the favorite. The public had no idea what was going on They saw the nominee they knew was going to win suddenly looking way more attractive and they poured money into it. It was never going to be enough to cover the losses if the fixed nominee won, but it would certainly help.

Sure enough, the night of the show, everyone at home and at the show all had their jaw drop when this nominee won. The payouts totaled about $12.5M.