Mark King suspended for five years

Suspended from what for five years? A crane? Seems harsh

Dan-cat wrote:Suspended from what for five years? A crane? Seems harsh

Only if its over Crawley.

Suspended by his suspenders, presumably

chengdufan wrote:Suspended by his suspenders, presumably

Well they’re not going to hang him by his hair, are they?

We've got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that's all we've got

HappyCamper wrote:

Cloud Strife wrote:

HappyCamper wrote:

Cloud Strife wrote:

SnookerEd25 wrote:
Well they’re not going to hang him by his hair, are they?

They could hang him by his pubic hair or armpit hair.

How do you know he doesn't wax?

How do you know he does?

I haven't claimed that he does. I am agnostic.

Is that the one where you can’t leave the house?

The King Report:

https://wpbsa.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... ymised.pdf

Holden Chinaski wrote:We've got five years, stuck on my eyes
Five years, what a surprise
We've got five years, my brain hurts a lot
Five years, that's all we've got

David Bowie, you mooks.

Empire State Human wrote:The King Report:

https://wpbsa.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... ymised.pdf

Bang to rights all for 15k,,,

gallantrabbit wrote:

Empire State Human wrote:The King Report:

https://wpbsa.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... ymised.pdf

Bang to rights all for 15k,,,

They speculated that the Higgins match could have been a test run but didn’t have enough evidence to state that categorically was the case.

The thing is why risk everything for £7.5k one off payment when I’m guessing he would probably have been making 3-5k per month just for turning up to events and loosing 1st round, obviously if he has any sort of run in one of those events he will make much more than 7.5k, now he will never make more than £2,000 per month and will have to work 40,50 hours per week to get that so very silly and shortsighted.

It must have been obvious that red flags would be instantly raised by the fact that the average betting volume on correct score markets were £5000 for there then to be a jump to £191,000 on that particular match, they just made it too obvious what they had been up to. He could have made a nice living for another 5/6 years on main tour then again done nicely on the seniors tour for another 10 + years as that tour is only getting stronger but he decided the throw all of that away for £15 grand.

King wouldn't think about betting patterns being analysed,,,
Carter and Selt's actions should also come into question

gallantrabbit wrote:King wouldn't think about betting patterns being analysed,,,
Carter and Selt's actions should also come into question

I’m presuming they were tasked with analysing just the shot selection/execution rather than also taking into account all of the other evidence like the betting patterns etc as just going by the shots alone I’m not sure how the panel could have found against King as whilst the shots were poor they weren’t any poorer than some of perrys efforts for example, lots of players do genuinely have very bad days at the office but none of those other players just so had a very poor performance that coincided with an extreme increase in bets being placed on the correct score market which is generally a very small market with small stakes.

gallantrabbit wrote:King wouldn't think about betting patterns being analysed,,,
Carter and Selt's actions should also come into question

He must have known that WST work with a company that tracks the betting on all matches surely

From the report Mark King does seem to have been unaware of the clause in players contracts that requires them to report if they are unwell or carrying an injury before a match (I wonder if World Snooker and/or the players association should actively remind all players of that clause, I suspect a fair few players won't read the small print, or promptly forget it). So perhaps him being unaware of the betting tracking might also be the case!

Regarding the amounts - I wonder if they (as in, King and the original planners) were intending the bets to be small emough to perhaps avoid attention, but someone amongst them talked and word got out to others (or maybe even just one key 'other') who then piled in on the back of this. The report reads in a way that that could have been the case. A question for World Snooker and the betting pattern analysts is whether they would have picked up on this if it had remained relatively small - if not, perhaps they need to upgrade their systems (or maybe quietly, they have done so already).

Edit: Just adding ... report suggests Higgins match perhaps not a fix as more profitable at 4-0 than 4-1 and King clearly tried to win the frame he did. But if this was a test run, perhaps not winning the larger amount to help it go unnoticed, or increase deniability if noticed, was in itself intentional?

Empire State Human wrote:The King Report:

https://wpbsa.com/wp-content/uploads/20 ... ymised.pdf

Thanks for posting the link.

Found the "betting patterns on the Perry match" section most enlightening. Showed how little is bet on snooker generally, and in particular on the niche markets, and explains clearly why the substantial betting turnover on the King versus Perry match coupled with wagers being near exclusively in a single direction rang alarm bells.

I wonder why they ever expect to get away with such bets, if the numbers are so far off other matches.

Carter and Selt were probably unaware of betting patterns although there wouldn't have been an investigation if it was all normal. The report seems to suggest they both reported that all the misses were quite possible but even a club player would suspect. I mean King's shot selection wasn't as bad as Lee's or Burnett's years ago but overall you'd certainly have suspicions.

Dan-cat wrote:I wonder why they ever expect to get away with such bets, if the numbers are so far off other matches.

In Mark King’s case, I suspect it is because he is thick as rubbish.

Unfortunately you're right.