Manny Pacquiao Joins in the Fight Against Illegal Gambling in the Philippines

31.08.2019, 13:14

Manny Pacquiao, who is the oldest welterweight champion at 40 in boxing history, is determined to help put an end to illegal gambling activities in the Philippines. He founded the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League on August 2017, out of a passion for basketball. Owing to the much dedication and commitment he has invested in the league, he is set to defend its image and save it from illegal gambling operators who are tarnishing its name. The Philippines senator is undertaking this journey by ensuring that no one fixes games in the league.

During the past weekend, Manny met with the chairman of the Philippine basketball association, Ricky Vargas, and Willie Marcial who is PBA‘s league commissioner. The agenda for the meeting was to get ways on how they can curb match-fixing, which has been rampant in the recent past across many sports.

They also discussed ways to closely monitor the players and other stakeholders such as team officials, coaches, and referees. Senator Pacquiao had earlier on warned teams, referees and players about game-fixing in the MPBL. Such an effort couldn’t be more timely, seeing the various issues that the Philippines and China have over gambling in the country.

To effectively do so, the leagues will be taking scrutiny at analytics to ascertain the players’ performance via key statistics. The analysis will be on correlating calls, bets, scores, and performances, especially in the PBA D-League (PBA’s Developmental League). It is from this scrutiny that they will be able to fish out any unusual patterns.

Officials from both leagues are expected to hold more meetings in the near future as they focus on cleaning the game. Besides protecting the images of the associations and players, restoring the glory of the game is among their top priority.

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