Gambling on sports, by and on athletes

 Now that sports betting is legal, and apps allow people to bet on particular events within a game as it unfolds, there is concern that players could be (illegally) incentivized to under-perform in order to cause some bets to become winning bets.

The WSJ has the story:

America Made a Huge Bet on Sports Gambling. The Backlash Is Here.  Less than six years after a Supreme Court ruling paved the way for widespread legal sports gambling in the U.S., sports leagues face an onslaught of scandals related to betting.  By Joshua Robinson, , Jared Diamond,  and Robert O'Connell

"American sports spent more than a century keeping gambling as far away as possible, in the name of preserving competitive purity and repelling scandal and corruption. 

"Now, less than six years after the Supreme Court opened the door for states to embrace legal sports betting, major U.S. leagues are already confronting the darker sides of sports betting with alarming frequency. And at the heart of the problems is the population whose ability to bet on sports is the most severely curbed: the athletes themselves.

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"The situation has become worrisome enough that National Collegiate Athletic Association president Charlie Baker on Wednesday amped up his organization’s call for a nationwide ban on bets on the performance of individual college athletes. 

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“All of the positive benefits and additional fan engagement that could potentially come from sports betting mean nothing if we’re not protecting the integrity of the game,” Marquest Meeks, MLB’s deputy general counsel for sports betting and compliance, said in an interview last summer.

"Gambling scandals have long tainted sports. The 1919 Black Sox scandal involved eight players accused of throwing the World Series for money. Baseball superstar Pete Rose received a lifetime ban for betting on baseball, a penalty that has blocked the game’s all-time hits leader from the Hall of Fame. Point-shaving scandals have periodically roiled college basketball, and NBA referee Tim Donaghy went to prison for betting on games he officiated.

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"Odds are now openly discussed on live broadcasts. Ads for betting apps seem to appear during every commercial break and are plastered around stadiums and arenas. Sports leagues even have gambling-focused programming on their official networks. 

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"What’s at stake now is the promise that lies at the very center of the sports experience: Fans and participants must believe that what they are seeing is true. Yet as the leagues and the gamblers grow closer together, the mere suggestion that players could be motivated to manipulate outcomes has been enough to create fresh doubts. 

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"Since the prohibition on sports gambling was lifted, leagues that had once viewed betting as an existential threat to their integrity scrambled to partner with gambling companies and brought them into the tent. This winter, Los Angeles Lakers superstar LeBron James became a brand ambassador for DraftKings, where he will dispense picks for football games. The NBA itself also announced a new feature designed to mesh the betting experience with live action: Fans watching games on League Pass, the flagship streaming platform, would be able to opt in to view betting odds on the app’s interface and click through to place wagers.

"Nothing, however, made the American marriage between sports and betting more public than what took place in the Nevada desert in February: The NFL held its first ever Super Bowl in Las Vegas.

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“To half the world, I’m just helping them make money on DraftKings,” [Indiana Pacers point guard Tyrese] Haliburton said Tuesday evening, naming one of the league’s partners. “I’m a prop.” He was referring to so-called proposition bets, in which gamblers can place wagers on specific outcomes such as how many points a player scores or rebounds he grabs."

Dismantling kleptocracy

 USAID has published a guide to combating kleptocracy--i.e. government by thieves.

DEKLEPTIFICATION GUIDE. Seizing Windows of Opportunity to Dismantle Kleptocracy

“And we’re going all in on dekleptification. Today, I’m announcing the creation of a new dekleptification guide—a handbook to help countries make the difficult transition from kleptocracy to democracy. This guide, drawn from previous democratic openings in Romania, Dominican Republic, and South Africa, provides advice to reformers on how to root out deeply entrenched corruption and technical advice on how to implement radical transparency and accountability measures, how to stand up new anti-corruption structures. Moving rapidly and aggressively in historic windows of opportunity will make these reforms harder to reverse.”  -USAID Administrator Samantha Power, remarks delivered on June 7, 2022.

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Here's the full report.

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"The Kremlin’s most common method of closing other countries’ reform windows is covertly bankrolling opposition political parties. The Russian Federation has gotten caught deploying financial interference in elections more than 100 times over the past decade.124 Until 2014, the targets were mostly limited to the former Soviet bloc. For example, Ukraine’s Orange Revolution and Georgia’s Rose Revolution ended when Russia-backed oligarchs funded pro-Russian candidates who became presidents and rekleptified the two countries.  Over the decade ending in 2014, Putin felt increasingly rebuffed by Western politicians who would not stand for his violations of the sovereignty of neighboring countries.126 His relations with the West came to a head when Ukrainians opened their dekleptification window in 2014. Since then, the Kremlin has dramatically expanded the target surface of its financial interference in elections, deploying covert foreign money all over the world, often to close windows or prevent them from opening (see Figure 7).

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"CONCLUSION The ultimate objective of dekleptification is to help nations that endeavor to adapt their social contract away from kleptocracy and toward new social norms about the government’s duties and the public’s intolerance for corruption. Such adaptations take many years or decades, sustained by virtuous circles of institutions that prove effective and popular enough to withstand efforts to undermine them and restore kleptocratic rule. Exceptional institutional and societal resilience is needed in strategically contested countries, where the influence of foreign kleptocracies and the pathways of transnational corruption provide enormous resources to corrupt elements seeking to undermine reform.

"The most important and essential precondition for a virtuous circle is very broad and highly mobilized demand throughout the society, driving powerful domestic political action that ushers in a window of opportunity to roll back kleptocracy. Amid those pivotal openings, reformers urgently call for rapid responses from the international donor community. They need everything from fastmoving funding to targeted communications to in-kind technical expertise. When deciding how to build cutting-edge institutions to deliver transparency, accountability, and inclusion, reformers benefit greatly from lessons learned during similar windows in other countries.

"This guide captures those insights. It draws from USAID experts who were on the ground during the windows of Georgia 2004-2012, Romania 2004-2018, Egypt 2011-2013, Brazil 2013-2019, Ukraine 2014-present, Guatemala 2015-2017, Armenia 2018-present, South Africa 2018-2019, Malaysia 2018-2020, Sudan 2019-2021, Moldova 2021-present, Bulgaria 2021-present, the Dominican Republic 2020-present, and Zambia 2021-present. USAID partnered with reformers who forged inclusive institutions that were radically transparent and aggressively accountable, generating models for other countries confronting kleptocracy and strategic corruption. These reformers tried to establish anti-corruption institutions rapidly enough to seize and sustain fleeting windows of political will. And they scoped the policy details to be far more transparent, independent, and inclusive than is common elsewhere. This a not apolitical and technocratic work; it requires overwhelming public demand, timely political analysis, vibrant civil society, well-coordinated donors and interagency partners, and Missions highly attuned to the fluid and intense political dynamics of dekleptification.

"This comprehensive approach to rolling back kleptocratic structures is central to the modern pursuit of development, democracy, and peace."

Anger at vaccine line jumping

 There is some tension between getting populations vaccinated quickly and ensuring that priorities for who gets vaccinated first are carefully followed.  In some places we have seen the costs of adhering too strictly to priorities when enough high priority people are hard to find quickly.  In other places we see the costs of ignoring priorities.

Here's a NY Times story on corruption in South America (followed by a Guardian story about the difficulty of stopping tech-savvy Californians from grabbing appointments meant for underserved minorities):

‘V.I.P. Immunization’ for the Powerful and Their Cronies Rattles South America. A wave of corruption scandals is exposing how the powerful and well-connected in South America jumped the line to get vaccines early. Public dismay is turning into anger.   By Mitra Taj, Anatoly Kurmanaev, Manuela Andreoni and Daniel Politi

"The hope brought by the arrival of the first vaccines in South America is hardening into anger as inoculation campaigns have spiraled into scandal, cronyism and corruption, rocking national governments and sapping trust in the political establishment.

"Four ministers in Peru, Argentina and Ecuador have resigned this month or are being investigated on suspicion of receiving or providing preferential access to scarce coronavirus shots. Prosecutors in those countries, and in Brazil, are examining thousands more accusations of irregularities in inoculation drives, most of them involving local politicians and their families cutting in line.

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“People find it much more difficult to tolerate corruption when health is at stake,” said Mariel Fornoni, a pollster in Buenos Aires.

The brazen nature of some of the scandals — which mirror similar affairs in Lebanon, Spain and the Philippines — has outraged the region.

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"Earlier this month, the doctor conducting Peru’s first vaccine trial acknowledged inoculating nearly 250 politicians, notables and their relatives, as well as university administrators, interns and others, with undeclared extra doses. Some had received three doses, according to the trial’s director, Dr. Germán Málaga, in an attempt to maximize their immunity."

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And here's the Guardian, on California:

California vaccine sites see misuse of codes meant to prioritize Black and Latino residents  by Vivian Ho

"Access codes meant to give Californians of color priority access to Covid-19 vaccine slots have been getting passed around among other residents in the state, allowing some to cut the line and get appointments meant for underserved Black and Latino residents.

Misuse of these codes was reported at vaccine sites in Los Angeles and the Bay Area, said Brian Ferguson, spokesperson for the California office of emergency services, to the Guardian.

"The codes were one of the tools devised by California leaders to address inequities in vaccine distribution in the state. They were given out to leaders and non-profits in the Black and Latino communities in LA and the Bay Area to administer to eligible individuals...

"Instead, the codes ended up passed on by text message and email, oftentimes with misinformation. “My daughter says that the Oakland Coliseum needs to fill up appointment slots in the next few days to prevent spoilage of excess vaccines!” read an email that Oakland resident Jhumpa Bhattacharya received from a friend on Monday. “If you are interested in getting a vaccine before this Wednesday, the link and access code are pasted below."

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"State officials thought that by handing out vaccine access codes through community leaders, they would bridge any cultural or language barriers while also addressing the issue of the digital divide by giving these eligible individuals special access to the website, Ferguson said. “We don’t want people to be able to get appointments based on who has the fastest internet connection,” he said.

"Since learning of the misuse, the state will begin issuing individualized codes rather than group codes next week. In addition to these codes, the state has been setting up mobile vaccination clinics in these specific communities in hopes of reaching these underserved residents."

School choice and privilege in Washington D.C. [updated]

A benefit (or a cost) of having clearly defined rules is that you can see when exceptions are made. (What could look like flexibility in a private sector environment can look like corruption in a public school system.) The Washington Post has the story:

D.C. deputy mayor resigns after allowing chancellor to bypass school lottery

"A D.C. deputy mayor resigned Friday after helping the public schools chancellor bypass the city’s notoriously competitive lottery system and secure a coveted slot for his teenage daughter at a top high school.

"The resignation of Deputy Mayor for Education Jennifer C. Niles is immediate, Mayor Muriel E. Bowser said Friday. The mayor said in an interview that she has ordered Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson to issue a public apology and has referred the matter to the Board of Ethics and Government Accountability and to the inspector general to examine whether the head of the city’s traditional public school system violated the code of conduct.

“My decision was wrong and I take full responsibility for my mistake,” Wilson said in a statement. “While I understand that many of you will be angered and disappointed by my actions, I’m here today to apologize and ask for your forgiveness.”

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From the Mayor's twitter stream:

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Update: the Chancellor has resigned as well.
Here's the Washington Post story, which includes a video distributed by the school system describing the school choice process:
D.C. Public Schools leader to resign after skirting school assignment rules

"Parents and council members quickly rallied behind the mayor’s decision, saying the chancellor cheated a system that D.C. families struggle to navigate."

Corruption as an equilibrium

WHY I AM CORRUPT | In Defense of Nigerians by Ayo Sogunro

"I am corrupt because the alternative is dangerous. In the final analysis, the price of honesty outweighs the consequences of corruption. Because there is no safety net for the honest person. Because a N100 note privately donated to the policeman is less cumbersome and less problematic than an honest trip to a Nigerian police station. I am corrupt because corruption is a logical process, because integrity is unreasonable. I am corrupt because corruption is ordinary: a mundane fact of life. I am corrupt because corruption works."