Talk:Point shaving

Opening comment
In the article, "from covering a published point spread" is hardly a useful explanation. What does it mean? What is point shaving?

OK, if New England Patriots are given a -13.5 point head start against the Giants in Super Bowl XLII(presumably same margin for the Crewe's team back then), for the Patriots to shave points, they would secure a 2-Touchdown lead, then let the Giants in, so the Patriots will never win by more than 2 TD's. Of course, this indirectly affects the total combined scores sometimes.

To disguise points shaving, the combined scores could be quite big.TimHowardII (talk) 19:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Mate, i still dont understand —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.229.34.42 (talk) 11:52, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

In the modern day section, they only present one viewpoint when it comes to regulating. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.171.22.204 (talk) 23:07, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand. There is no viewpoint on regulating the industry. Clearly, the industry is unregulated and I point that out. And clearly, the author is not proposing that the industry should be regulated or unregulated. I have no personal interest in regulating the industry because I have nothing to gain. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luckerkd (talk • contribs) 20:37, 22 September 2011 (UTC)

statistical blatherskite
The third paragraph of the other sports section of this version of the page appears to make no sense. Large deviations from the mean are totally normal. Consider the stock market, it has these all the time. There is no reason variation from the mean implies something is wrong. There is also no reliable source for these claims. 018 (talk) 02:53, 4 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi. Sports is not the stock market. Sports does not have large deviations from the mean (in other words unlikely outcomes) "all the time". Please make sure that you are knowledgeable on the relevant subjet before making big changes to wikipedia articles containing that subject. It would save everyone a lot of time. Also please do not remove a referenced source if information in a published wikipedia article is taken from that source. Also make sure to read the entire source article to find out if any information in the wikipedia article was taken from the original source ... in this particular case ... the original source for the "Other Sports" and "Current Use" sections is the PointShavers.com definition of Point Shaving. Also, the third paragraph is not a claim ... it is merely a mathematical explanation for the observation of unlikely outcomes. It is intuitive to understand that unlikely outcomes would create huge swings in prediction markets so the average reader shouldn't need any more "hand holding" at this point. Luckerkd (talk • contribs)


 * Luckerkd, consider the sentence, "The observed deviation from the mean (or average) is what makes these outcomes so unlikely." It makes no sense. What does "these outcomes" refer to? There is also no support for the claim, and it is, essentially, not supportable. The process has a variance and the claim is that it is inflated due to point shaving, but it could also just be larger than the person claiming it is point shaving believes it should be. The source offers no evidence for this, it is just a bald claim. This might be okay if it was a very reliable source, but it isn't. Why do you think this is a reliable source? 018 (talk) 01:57, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

Hi. It is extremely difficult to prove that an athlete has been point shaving because the activity is often cleverly disguised. And yes, the process (sports) has a variance. However, the process (sports) has also been linked to criminal activity and fraud throughout its history. We have worldwide reports of point shaving and game fixing in all sports...the most recent reports here in the United States came in 2010. There is no denying that because we have factual documented evidence. If you still don't get it, just look up the convictions on the Toledo athletes accused of point shaving.

It is easy for anyone to understand that criminal activity and corruption have no bounds. And, it would be naive to think that sports is immune to corruption. From our brief discussions here on Wikipedia, you seem to have the idea that sports is not corrupted and can never be corrupted. I'm wondering who or what gave you that impression? But it's not surprising considering what little insight you have brought to the topic. In addition to the fact that you are currently wasting my time which I consider extremely valuable.

Therefore I hope you can see that we have a situation where criminal activity can occur; however, it is extremely difficult to prove because of the variance of the process. But I can mathematically make claims about the variance based on probability theory, logical reasoning, and set theory.

So now I will use mathematics in order to answer your questions about point shaving. My first claim is that sports is non deterministic. That claim can be verified by observation. My second claim is that prediction markets exist for organized sports. This claim can also be verified. My third claim is that prediction markets for sports see large revenues (after payouts). This has been verified by Forbes magazine. My fourth claim is that it is mathematically unlikely for the bookmaker to consistently generate excessively large revenues (after payouts) in a prediction market that is based on events that are non deterministic (or random). This result comes from probability and logical reasoning. My fifth claim is that it is mathematically likely that there is bias present in the results/outcomes of the process that gives the bookmaker the ability to consistently generate excessively large revenues (after payouts) in a prediction market that is non deterministic. This claim is supported by Forbes magazine. The sixth claim is that there is bias present that predetermines outcomes in the prediction market in order to change a non deterministic system into a determistic system (or a fixed system). My seventh claim is that in sports, a deterministic system must be controlled and manipulated by the participants themselves (athletes, referees, coaches, etc.). My eighth claim is that the manipulation of outcomes in this manner is what we know and observe as point shaving. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luckerkd (talk • contribs) 20:19, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm waiting to see this proof come up somewhere in the news somewhere ... of course I will get no credit for it ... I'm the idiot ... of course ... I must be stupid and everyone else is much much smarter than me :)

Oh yeah, as far as the reliable source goes...the author ... Kevin Luckerson ... has an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering in Vanderbilt University and has done Grad Research on Determistic and Non Deterministic systems including a published paper on modeling various deterministic systems using state diagrams and developing state based software verification systems. And he has a paper published with Vanderbilt University ... http://www.worldcat.org/title/state-based-software-verification-using-the-state-space-analysis-tool-and-the-statemate-software-library/oclc/52283052

Is that OK for wikipedia...probably not...I'm sure because everyone else is much smarter than me and I know nothing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.234.44.146 (talk) 21:14, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

possible copyright violation
I also wondered if this text was taken from the reference website and started a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:Copyright_problems

Which text are you talking about? Just use the History tab and you will find out that Luckerkd has done the most recent organiztion and cleanup for the article. Luckerkd (talk • contribs)


 * It is copyright text, so I'm not going to add it but one sentence appears verbatim and another appears approximately. They are the first and last bit of the third paragraph on the linked site. However, now that I look at it again, it looks like the site might be claiming that they licensed that text here too. 018 (talk) 01:57, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

PointShavers.Com links
Pointshavers.com is a one-page site with nothing but a definition of point shaving and a link to a blogger.com profile that links to a number of spammy links such as "free MLB picks" and "guaranteed picks". Worse, the writing on this one-page site is pulled directly from primary source articles like this one: http://articles.cnn.com/2007-08-15/us/nba.ref_1_bet-on-nba-games-guilty-plea-tim-donaghy?_s=PM:US

While a clever SEO tactic, this site is non-notable, non-encyclopedic, secondary, and this does not belong on Wikipedia. I would suggest the creator of the site spend less time spamming Wikipedia and more time building up substantive content on your site so it becomes a legitimate citation source.

12.148.169.2 (talk) 19:21, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

German soccer scandal
I think what happened in Germany was match-fixing not point shaving. Soccer is a low scoring game and so does not really lend itself to point shaving. On another issue,the section on American Football needs to either have at least one confirmed example.  Tigerboy1966  09:57, 19 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I concur and I've removed the section. It seems that (inactive since 2016) made many changes to the article evincing an idiosyncratic interpretation of what "point shaving" means. jnestorius(talk) 21:15, 8 February 2019 (UTC)