The release of the names of those 47 players and officials allegedly involved in fixing games of the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League (MPBL) has become a trending topic in recent days. As expected, the family and relatives of those included in the list cried foul over the supposed lack of due process in coming up with the list.
How did the MPBL identify those purportedly involved in game fixing? MPBL Lead Executive Joe Ramos explained during the senate hearing last February 8, 2024 that the league is using a three-pronged approach.
First, the MPBL partnered with Sportradar, an analytics provider, to analyze any unusual trends. Sportsradar will then provide to the MPBL the analysis which are categorized into yellow for minor issues and red for major issues. Second, the MPBL studies the historical statistics of each player to check for any unusual deviation from his averages. The MPBL will also look into the history of each player, especially when they have been previously suspected or involved in game fixing.
Lastly, the MPBL uses the eye test. Sometimes, or more often, game fixing or point shaving is very obvious as players will intentionally miss free throws using their non-shooting hands, or they purposely commit turnovers or miss easy layups. As such, there are representatives of the Games and Amusement Boards (GAB) who watch the games at the venue to check for any fishy activities.
Read below the explanation of MPBL Lead Executive Joe Ramos as to how the MPBL determine game fixing.
"We have a three-pronged approach. We have an analytics partner which is Sportradar which Senator Bong Go mentioned earlier. So they do the analytics, in terms of they capture all of the betting markets, from all over the world, and they see where the betting patterns are. So they provide us with either a, I guess if it is a yellow, a minor issue, and major issue which is red.Next, would be the stats and the player's history. Again, the chairman mentioned earlier, so we look at the stats, we look at the players, past performances and history. And then obviously, yung eye test natin, as Senator Jinggoy mentioned, our commissioner Kenneth Duremdes, our head of operations are ex-professional basketball players, so we've been in the business for obviously a while, so we know kung meron ano...so that's how we determine whether a player is manipulating a game or not, so yun po."