I understand why you would not want athletes to throw games on purpose if they place a large bet for the opposing team to win, however let’s say I am a pitcher in baseball, and I place a bet for my own team to win, wouldn’t that only motivate me to play better because I stand to win more money by doing so?
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In most American professional sports, the seasons are long enough that it’s not reasonable to expect to win every game. If a Major League Baseball team lost 50 regular season games, that would go down in history as one of the all time greatest seasons.
Teams don’t play even schedules. Games against divisional opponents matter a lot more than games against non-divisional opponents. Sometimes, it might not be a terrible thing to lose a non-divsional game if it allows you to rest up your players so they can be at their best in an upcoming divisional game.
Imagine an East coast baseball team is finishing up a West coast swing. They have a Thursday afternoon game, immediately fly across the country after the game and begin a 3 game weekend series against a divisional opponent. The strategy for that Thursday game might be to rest players so they’ll be in a better position to win the more important games over the weekend. Players who bet on their team to win that Thursday game might overexert themselves on Thursday and hurt their team’s chances to win the weekend series.
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