Las Vegas Sportsbooks Soon to Accept Wagering on Events Such as Academy Awards...What About Cheating with Oscar Betting?

Okay, let's say the movie "True Grit," the remake of the John Wayne classic starring Jeff Bridges, is 2 to 1 to win the Oscar for Best Picture. And lets say Colin Firth is 3 to 1 to win Best Actor. Soon you will actually be able to bet on this in all legal sportsbooks in the State of Nevada, but probably not in time for this year's Academy Awards. More likely in a few months' time, which means you will be able to bet on a wide spectrum of events such as elections, outcomes of wars, weather patterns, etc.

How will cheating on this type of betting come to play in Nevada casino sportsbooks? Well, in some areas such as betting on weather patterns it would be pretty difficult to cheat--unless of course some pretty determined betters actually try to influence the weather to conform with their bets. I have heard of people trying to create manmade tidal waves. I think it happened off the coast of Hawaii. And the outcome of wars? That would be a bloody mess, pardon the pun.

But more to the point of cheating, a betting event such as the Academy Awards could become involved in a betting/cheating scandal. We all know that supposedly no one knows the results until the envelope containing them is opened during the ceremony, but this process can easily be corrupted. Los Angeles is full of amoral and dishonest people in the right places. Remember the infamous private investigator "to the stars" Anthony Pellicano? If not, he was the LA PI caught in a huge wiretapping blackmail scheme involving several actors and producers who were invovled in winning Oscars at several Academy Award presentations, most notably Sylvester Stallone.

So it would not be hard to imagine that someone with ties to the right LA people could somehow get his hands on what's in the envelope before that envelope gets in the hands of the presenters on stage.

What about elections? Well, elections that are tampered with, at least in the US, are usually tampered with for the purpose of winning the election, not betting on it, although that might change if the odds are long enough!