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Resumo

Drawing upon new institutionalist lines of thought, this article examines how the institutional design of contemporary sports betting precipitates match-fixing and frames it as individual ethical failure. Given the inherent trade-off between pursuing: (1) managerial efficiency to insulate players from outside influence and (2) ethical legitimacy to render the business of sports betting socially desirable, this study analyses how the conflicting imperatives are reconciled in two contrasting institutional designs for sports betting: (a) South Korean football betting; and (b) motorboat race betting. Employing a qualitative multi-method approach, the analysis reveals that the football-betting regime sacrifices managerial efficiency for social legitimacy, thus engendering match-fixing; however, such an institutional failure is compensated by shifting the responsibility for match-fixing to individual players. Consequently, it is suggested that who is to blame for failure is not something functionally determined; rather, it is determined politically and justified by institutional power that renders individual ethical failure a much greater crime, only because the institution is too big to fail.

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