Monday 16 February 2015

Private Law - Cricket edition

Cops moonlighting, out of uniform, as event security - I can get that.

This one I'm less clear on:
Police have warned people who try to manipulate betting on the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 that they will be caught and banned from all grounds involved in the tournament.
Police evicted several people from the opening match at North Hagley Park in Christchurch today for breaching the terms and conditions of their tickets, including some who were caught "courtsiding".
So what criminal offences are these courtsiders committing?
Courtsiding refers to the practice of spectators within venues relaying information of incidents during games to people overseas, taking advantage of broadcasting time delays to manipulate betting.
It is different from match-fixing, which is the manipulation of sporting events to achieve a pre-determined outcome.
Courtsiding is not illegal in New Zealand, but it is a breach of the terms and conditions of ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 tickets.
Operation Commander for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 policing operation Superintendent Sandy Manderson said Police knew how to idenfity people who were courtsiding and those attempting it would be caught.
"We know what to look for.
We’re aware that people are attempting to operate at venues and they will be detected, evicted and trespassed from all venues. 
So the New Zealand Police are enforcing the terms and conditions of the ICC Cricket World Cup tickets. I could get their enforcing trespass where the venue kicked somebody out for breach of conditions, but why are the Police investigating breach of ticket terms and conditions?

If you were at the venue and didn't know that Sky had gone to commercial, would tweeting a 6 or a wicket get you kicked out of the match by the cops?

8 comments:

  1. Was discussing this yesterday with a mate at the cricket and it would be fairly simple to write an application that would place bets across a number of accounts at an online betting site, while you could be sitting at the ground leisurely using your phone to place the bets.

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  2. I was thinking precisely the same thing while listening to some anti-gambling ICC zealot on the radio this morning. When it comes to burglaries the police are always "too busy", but they somehow have ample resources to devote to this--which isn't even illegal in NZ.

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  3. From the description of the practice it seems that the loser here (financially) is the betting shop/book somewhere offshore. If these people are getting fleeced on bets that cover individual pieces of play that occur microseconds after the bet has been placed, then they must be really bad gamblers - certainly not in need of NZ Police protection. Solution? - if the delay in live coverage is 5 seconds (10-15 whatever), don't take bets in that window.

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  4. The Classic early 1970s movie The Sting was based on the wire. Getting ahead of telegraph horse racing reports.

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  5. And later on "Grifters" used the same scam. But it depends on no-one knowing that the delay exists. Why not just publicise the delay rather than trying to stop people using it.

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  6. I hope it wasn't a remake of the The Sting. Some movie classic should never be remade.

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  7. It wasn't a remake. They just used the same scam, and in the case of Grifters it was to make money from the scam, not to fool someone else into thinking he was going to make money from the scam. Totally agree with you about The Sting. It is most finely crafted movie in its genre that i can think of.

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