IPG 4.4 Unsporting Conduct — Bribery and Wagering

Definition

A player offers an incentive to entice an opponent into conceding, drawing, or changing the results of a match, encourages such an offer, or accepts such an offer. Refer to section 5.2 of the Magic Tournament Rules for a more detailed description of what constitutes bribery.

Penalty

Match Loss

Where the IPG says “refer to the Magic Tournament Rules,” it means “everything on the subject of Bribery besides the penalty is in the MTR.” So let’s summarize the key points here (please refer to the MTR for full details on the subject). Full articles have been written on what is/is not legal. We are only summarizing here.

Dropping, conceding, or agreeing to an intentional draw must not be done in exchange for any sort of reward or incentive. Statements like “I’ll scoop to you if I get your FNM promo,” or, “Hey, If I make it into the Top 8, I’ll be in the money, and I can be pretty generous” are unacceptable. “Hey, I’m hungry, let’s intentionally draw so we can go get some food before the next round” is not an offer or an incentive, and as such is acceptable.

In the Finals, there is an exception to the Bribery rules that allow players to divide prizes as they wish, so long as it does not include incentives outside of the prize pool. If the final has a prize that is not divisible, like a Pro Tour Invite, then the player who does not receive the “award” prize must drop from the tournament — not concede, but drop.

Players can use information regarding the results of another match to determine if they want to offer to intentionally draw. However, they cannot consult those other matches, or reach an agreement with them.

In some events, during the single elimination, the players may decide to split all the prizes evenly. This requires the Tournament Organizer’s agreement, and must be unanimous amongst the players.

Wagering occurs when a player or spectator at a tournament places or offers to place a bet on the outcome of a tournament, match or any portion of a tournament or match. The wager does not need to be monetary, nor is it relevant if a player is not betting on their own match.

Wagering is easier to understand. If you wager on anything in the event, you are gambling, and that is not allowed in sanctioned events. Once people wager anything on the outcome of the games within the event, if judges don’t act upon that they run the risk of damaging the image of Magic as a whole, beyond that single event. There have been cases where events like FNM were shut down by local law enforcement because they felt it was breaking gambling laws. This is the kind of thing Wizards of the Coast doesn’t want people to think of when they think of their game.
Wagering requires two or more people to be risking something. Offering a bounty on a player is not wagering. “I’ll give you a booster if you beat my friend” is only one person risking something, and even then they’re hoping they do have to give the booster away.

If the player was aware that what they were doing was against the rules, the infraction is Unsporting Conduct – Cheating.

This infraction assumes that the player or players have no knowledge that bribery or wagering are not against the rules. Knowing it is against the rules changes the infraction to Unsporting Conduct – Cheating.

Examples

A. A player in a Swiss round offers their opponent $100 to concede the match.

This is an example of buying a win, and is not allowed. It’s an unfair advantage that basically would allow the person with the biggest wallet the ability to buy victories.
B. A player offers their opponent a card in exchange for a draw.

This is an example of an incentive determining the outcome of the results. It’s not exactly as enticing as that one hundred dollar bill above, but it’s still not fair to everyone else that someone can use something else to influence the outcome of their matches.
C. A player asks for a concession in exchange for a prize split.

Remember that players can agree to divide prizes — perhaps because they’re friends, or they feel bad about what happened to someone else in the event — but not if the split or exchange is contingent upon any kind of match result. Saying you will concede for a prize split is illegal. However, a legal scenario is: you offer a prize split, then, once it’s accepted, you ask your opponent to concede or you concede. In this scenario, the prize split was not dependent on a concession, despite the fact that once the prize split was agreed, one player no longer wanted to play.
D. Two players agree that the winner of the match will be able to choose a rare card out of the other person’s deck after the match.

Even something like “a soda for the draw” or “a foot rub at home later” is something that’s now affecting the decisions of the players, regardless of the intent of that offer. It could be a “joke” between two players, but we’ll never know if that’s true or not.
E. Two spectators place a bet on the number of games that will be needed to decide a match.

This is a great example of wagering that you might not have immediately thought of.

Philosophy

Bribery and wagering disrupt the integrity of the tournament and are strictly forbidden.

By offering any incentive for the results of a match, or placing incentive on the outcome of the match, players have tainted the integrity of the event, and created an unfair play environment where results are potentially no longer decided by games of Magic. Because this can be so damaging and difficult to catch, it’s penalized.
Earlier versions of the IPG had this penalty as Disqualification because of the severity of the disruption to the integrity of the tournament, that is still the case, using Unsporting Conduct – Cheating, if the player knew bribery or wagering were against the rules. It’s a lot harder to provide education to a player unaware that a small bet or what they thought was a valid prize split is against the rules when filling out disqualification paperwork than explaining why they are receiving a match loss.