In last night’s Women’s World Cup elimination round between Japan and Holland, the defending champions conceded a marshmallow of a goal in the 91st minute. This came after Japan was leading 2-0, yielding a 2-1 final score. There have been many parties who have been suggesting possible foul-play, as most soccer matches have their goalscoring totals lined at 2.5. I am going to provide some things to consider as to why I believe this was simply an accident, and not a match-fixing incident that should be investigated.
Before we begin, understand that I am someone who believes that match-fixing does exist. I have seen it with my own eyes on multiple occasions. It can be detected by monitoring betting trends. Generally, when a heavy amount of money comes in on one side in a short period of time, it can call for eyebrows to be raised. In the case of the match in question, there was a steady stream of bets being placed on the under, driving the over 2.5 line to +185 at most notable sports-books.
Even without any suspicious betting trends, there are other factors that would suggest that this was simply an honest error by the Japanese goaltender. Generally, match-fixing will not occur around the exact number mentioned in the big two betting markets (which are spreads and totals). This means that if a team were to purposely concede goals to allow the game to go over or to blow the spread, they would ensure that the over 3.5 or 4.5 would hit in a game lined at 2.5, or that the spread of -1.5 would cover by losing by a margin of 3 or 4. This removes the probability of being caught, as events that directly revolve around the main number will be subject to more scrutiny from the public eye. Regardless of your opinion on the tournament, the Women’s World Cup is a big stage with a lot of viewers. No one would be foolish enough to match-fix around the main number of 2.
As someone who has been able to detect match-fixing through betting trend analysis in the past, I can tell you that the majority of fixed games revolve around half-time/full-time props. These generally will have more lucrative odds, and will allow the better team to directly control what is going on without yielding a suspicious result. These bets allow users to predict what the half-time result will be, and the full-time result. The safest option for a talented team would be to ensure that the half-time score would be a draw (“X”) or the underdog would be leading (“2” – if they were the away-team). Then they would ensure that they won the match (“1” – if they were the home-team). This would have the fixed HT/FT result being X/1 or 2/1. These will typically have high-paying odds, as large underdogs will not be expected to stay competitive during a smaller 45 minute time-frame. I have plenty of examples of HT/FT match-fixing with proof about pre-game knowledge. I do not personally bet on fixed matches (for real), but perhaps it would make for interesting reading material.