By now, most people know that primetime wrestling is scripted, but that doesn’t stop. World Wrestling Entertainment – commonly known as the WWE — to pursue the option of allowing people bet legally in their matches.
CNBC reports that WWE is in talks with state gambling regulators in Colorado and Michigan to legalize betting on high profile matchescatching many completely off guard.
Sources who spoke to the site said WWE is working with accounting firm Ernst & Young to safe hyphen match results “In the hope of convincing regulators that there is no chance of the results being leaked to the public.”
Sports bets worldwide has become a massive and highly lucrative business in recent years, but this latest news has some in awe over Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson, due to WWE’s transparent status as sports entertainment.
@TheRock / Instagram
As it is, wrestlers often know the outcome of their matches well in advance of filming, but Wrestling Observer Radio’s Dave Meltzer says that I would have to change if legalized bets are approved.
“By the time they tell people and it is known, or even if it is not known, there will be people looking into them, and they will be in a unbelievable number of problems for gambling violations and things like that,” Meltzer explained. “That’s nothing to mess with. They literally can’t do that. Then the talent will not be able to know their finals, at least in the games that are being bet on.
Meltzer also noted that WWE often relies on its writers and wrestlers to create and stage stories. around the results of the matches, which often take place weeks before a scheduled event. This could prove difficult, and change the way the business is run, if they can’t plan a story because they don’t know the end result of a match.
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“If Roman Reigns is going to participate in that pay-per-view against Sami Zayn, and he doesn’t know if he’s going to win or lose until the last minute, how does everyone create the stories for the week before and the week? next and where do they go? Meltzer pointed out.
Historically, Ernst & Young has worked with award shows like the Emmy Awards and Academy Awards to keep results secret and allow legal betting in some states, and sources told CNBC that WWE executives have used Oscar betting as a template to convince regulators that betting on scheduled or predetermined events can be done safely.
Sports betting site Action Network says there are “a lot” of people inside WWE they usually know the results of a match ahead of time, including senior executives, key members of creative teams, and often broadcast teams.
“And those are just the ones that we have a high degree of confidence to say that they know the results in advance. There is certainly others”, the site notes.
However, the site also notes that WWE is likely to look to Michigan and Colorado as legal betting partners, as gaming control boards in those states “tend to be looser with its rules” and currently allow betting on events such as the Oscars.
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