Paying athletes to WIN a game???
That's the dumbest thing I've ever seen in a movie... and I saw Ace Ventura 2.
It's like they wussed out and didn't want to make Galiecki's character too scummy by paying a guy to dump a game.
So freakin' dumb...
Someone has no concept of sports gambling and organized crime...
shareIf you mean the writer/producer/director of the movie, then I absolutely agree. If you mean me... maybe you're right.
If you've ever heard of an athlete (especially a college athlete) being paid to WIN a game, I'll be happy to retract my post.
Star athletes get bribed to LOSE games, not win them. Their careers are built on winning games, so it's pretty much a given that they're going to play as hard as they can... "Well, I know that my scholarship rides on my athletic performance, not to mention the possibility of a multi-million $$$ NBA contract hanging out there... but truth be told, I've been kinda half-a**in'it. That 10k you offered me is all I needed to motivate me to give 110%."
You bribe players to lose because it's much easier to 'choose' to lose a game than it is to 'choose' to win a game. A few just-missed passes, a bounced shot here or there... that can be all it takes to lose a game. If winning were that easy to simply "decide" to do, everybody would.
Moreover, gamblers bribe 'favorites' to lose because of the odds. Depending on the structure of the bet, betting on the favorite to win usually doesn't pay as well as the longshot.
Like I said, I think they wrote it so that the character pays players to win because it didn't seem as scummy... That way they could have their "everything worked out and everbody's still pretty much a good guy" ending.
The idea of throwing the favorite the money is to insure they dont take money to shave...being that jude was the bookmaker he didnt have the choice on which team to throw his money behind...he had a bet made and it was extremely important to his bankroll that points were not shaved....it happens
shareYeah you clearly don't get the point and you don't have any concept of gambling.
The college kids were in on a $100k bet that their colleges team would not cover the spread for the game. It was widely known on campus then that it would happen and that Garrett had paid off the team to shave points. It was too late to lay down the bet and they knew they could not cover the debt if Garrett won the gamble. So they paid the team more to win.
Why? Because why would the team shave and possibly get caught for it when they could get paid more money to do what they were expected to do? It's a lose to win situation. If Garrett wins they're screwed, they can't cover it. If they spend money, they can escape the situation with a smaller loss. Better to be out a mere 10k than completely screwed, not to mention really socking it to Garrett.
Aristophanes once wrote, roughly translated...
Okay, that makes much more sense... though, it's not that I'm clueless about gambling. (granted, I'm personally not much of a sports bettor... I prefer poker, and maybe a little blackjack now and again)
When I was watching it, the cable went out for about twenty minutes toward the end of the movie and didn't come back on until about 5 minutes to the end, so I didn't see the entire thing.
Having caught only the parts talking about paying them to win/cover the spread, it sounded really contrived... I didn't realize it was a counter-payoff. (although that still sounds a [i}little[/i] contrived, but not nearly as bad... What were the other bookies going to do about the players who shafted them? Did they address that?)
I agree, the 'paying to win' scenario kind of went over my head. And when Rachel Leigh Cook's character speaks to that one basketball player, it's evident that he says it's still a toss-up as to whether his team will win. In any event, I'm not sure that the scenario above applies, b/c Galecki's character didn't know about the counter-bribe from the mob until afterwards. I think his intuition was what bl333 stated "he was paying them to give 110%."
shareIf you have ever taken the spread on a game you would understand how an athlete could be paid to "win" the game. All the team is trying to do is physically win the game. The gamblers on the other hand need the team to win by a certain number of points (spread). Paying off a team to cover the spread makes sure they don't take a knee when they could kick a spread beating field goal.
Look back at Gonzaga allowing an uncontested, meaningless, last second spread beating layup in the first round of the tournament last year... movies like this make you think a little.
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