At some point between August 7 and August 9, Zhen Xing Yang and girlfriend Xi Zhou were brutally murdered in their apartment by someone who they appeared to know. There was no signs of forced entry, which is a clear sign the couple invited their killer inside. The couple’s cat didn’t even escape the massacre — it was drowned and its body hidden in the bathroom. Both 25, Zhen Xing Yang and Xi Zhou appeared like any other young couple. They met while in college and she worked as a server at a local restaurant. At first, there was no known motive for the horrific crime.

After going through the contents of the couple’s computer files, however, investigators found that the couple was engaged in an online scam involving sports betting and exploiting small delays in the broadcasts of live sporting events in different parts of the world.

The Guardian article describes the findings:

Finally, this Thursday a possible motive emerged. Internet forums for the Chinese community were aflutter with one particular theory: that Zhen Xing had been involved in shadowy businesses, and gained some dangerous enemies.

Under the user name lanyang0201 – the numbers correspond with his birthday – he posted adverts on Chinese language websites, based in Britain, to recruit people to report on football matches around the world. The aim would have been to take advantage of delays in almost live broadcasts to place bets.

On one website, Zhen Xing wrote: “It is a very simple job, any student who is interested please contact Zhenxing Yang.” An email address was then listed. An advertisement posted under the name of CICI-U – his girlfriend’s nickname – on the powerapple website last October said: “Work: watch football games and send live information to people. Requirement: Basic understanding of football rules, no professional background needed, advantage if you have a car. Location: Sheffield, London, Blackpool, Portsmouth, York, Hull and many other places.”

Many sportsbooks these days allow for players to bet on each individual play of a sporting event. For example, you may be able to place a bet as to whether the next pitch in a baseball game will be a ball or a strike. Apparently this couple hired students in various parts of the world to report to them what a play will be in time enough for them to place a live bet before the play makes it to broadcast in other parts of the world. In an exchange betting environment this could be an effective way to game the system – kind of like placing a bet on the replay.

While this couple may seem to be taking advantage of the system, it’s difficult to say if it should be illegal. In some ways, it seems to parallel the crime of insider trading in the stock market world. However, it does appear that the couple was using publicly available data that would be available to any truly motivated sports bettor. In the end, it shows that the sports betting and gambling world in general has a ways to go before it achieves the legitimacy of a mainstream fair and open market that could be considered a safe option for large investors seeking big financial returns.

Read the full article here.

I’ve written before about the virtual world of Second Life and how they recently cracked down on the virtual casinos within the game.  Well an online casino has stepped in and is considering providing a way for these players to gamble with their “Linden Dollars” – the online currency of Second Life.  Online backgammon and blackjack site “Backgammon Masters” has recently surveyed their membership to see what the interest level is in allowing for players to gamble with their virtual dollars and cash out funds into real world currency such as the the USD, Euro, GBP, CND, US Dollars, Australian Dollar, British Pound, Canadian Dollar, Czech Koruna, Danish Kroner, Euro, Hong Kong Dollar, Hungarian Forint, Japanese Yen, New Zealand Dollar, Norwegian Krone, Polish Zloty, Singapore Dollar, Swedish Krona, Swiss Franc, and the South African Rand – all of which are accepted currently at the online casino.

If implemented, this would potentially open up some interesting possibilities for currency arbitrage and give players of Second Life more flexibility in accessing their virtual holdings. I personally don’t play Second Life but I know many folks who do and I think as the popularity of these online games increases, the line between virtual and real assets will continue to become more and more blurry.

A new trend I’m seeing these days are public gambling sites offering “Sure Thing” bets based on the principles of arbitrage, once reserved for hedge funds and financial markets.

Sure thing bets are a lot different than the “guaranteed” picks of the old days. In the old days a handicapper simply would promise that their picks would win or you wouldn’t pay. This can be hazardous to your wallet in a very short period of time. These days the picks that are identified require you to bet at two different sites or with two different individuals on an exchange. Becuase the variation of the odds are so great, no matter which team wins the match, you will be certain to make money – even when you subtract the vigorish commanded by the sportsbook!

Anyway, here is a list of links to sites offering “Sure Thing” bets. I haven’t been sufficiently motivated to set up the many sportsbooks accounts I would need to take advantage of these situations, but I’m starting to rethink that philosophy. On one hand it seems to be that a sure bet kind of defeats the whole excitement of gambling and turns it into a boring financial instrument such as a savings bond. On the other hand, that new Tesla Roadster would really look great in my garage Perhaps this will be the subject of a future post…

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