Forensic Accounting in AFL Betting Scandal Investigation

This article discusses the use of forensic accounting in the investigation of the AFL betting scandal. It explains the process used to identify examples of games where data has been changed and provides five examples of manipulative changes to the data in the file recovered from the arrested mastermind. The article also discusses the meaning of the findings and highlights the continuous phenomenon of betting in AFL matches.

Running head: FORENSIC ACCOUNTING
Forensic Accounting
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Authors Note:

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Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................2
Examples of manipulative changes to the data in the file recovered from the arrested master mind
of the betting scandal:......................................................................................................................2
Process used in the investigation to identify the examples of games where the data has been
changed:...........................................................................................................................................3
Meaning of the findings:..................................................................................................................6
References:......................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction:
The betting scandals have tainted the image of number of sporting events in all across the
globe. Australian Football League (AFL), an annual soccer league held in Australia, has also
been alleged with number of betting scandals including allegations of match fixing by players.
Recently a betting leader has been arrested in connection with the betting scandals in AFL. A
laptop has been recovered from the person arrested in connection with the betting scandal that
contains a file of all the data of the matches played since 1897 till 2018. The investigation team
has been handed with the original file containing the data and information about all the matches
played in chronological order along with the file of the betting leader containing data of these
matches in chronological order. The investigator has decided to use the analytical characteristics
of excel to conduct a detailed investigation on the data of the both files to identify the examples
where changes have been made to the data of AFL matches in the betting master mind’s file by
comparing the data with the original data of the matches (Selwyn, Henderson and Chao, 2015).
Examples of manipulative changes to the data in the file recovered from the arrested
master mind of the betting scandal:
The period of investigation span over 120 years. The games played between 1897 and the
year 2018 are under the scrutiny in the investigation to find out changes made in the excel file of
the betting master mind. There have been more than tens of thousands of game that have been
played in the AFL over the course of 121 years, i.e. since 1897. It is practically impossible to go
through all the games and check scores of team 1 and team 2 manually in the original file and
then to compare these with the data in the betting master mind’s laptop (O'Flaherty and Phillips,
2015). Thus, using the “IF” function in excel, a logic has been created to identify matches of
which data has been changed in the betting file by comparing the data of the original file.

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The five examples of data changes are mentioned below in a screen shot:
Thus, as can be seen that on July 8th, 2017 there were 5 games that had originally scored
differently compared to the score recorded in the file recovered from the master mind of betting
syndicate. Along with that the data of a match played on July 12th, 2018 has also been changed in
the file of the mastermind of the betting syndicate as is visible from the above screen shot (Cao,
Wang and Li, 2017). It is important to note here that there have been number of games of which
data has been changed during the investigation period however, only five examples have been
here.
Process used in the investigation to identify the examples of games where the data has been
changed:
As already mentioned that there have been more than tens of thousands of games played
between 1897 and 2018. Since, it is not possible to manually check the data of each of these
games an excel sheet has been used to import all the data from the betting mastermind’s file and
the original file from the official website of AFL (Zhu, 2014). The data from these two files have
been merged in a single file, visible clearly in the following image.

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The original score and the score of ringleader have been highlighted in different colours to make
sure these are visible clearly without any problem. After merging the data of the ringleader’s file
and original file into a separate file, these data have been filtered by using sort and filter function
which is located at the far right corner of an excel sheet (Barreto, 2015). The following image
shows the sort and filter option in excel sheet:
In the far right corner of the excel sheet the sort and filter option is visible also provided below
with bigger image containing only the sort and filter function in excel spreadsheet.

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This function helps to sort and filter large number of data on the basis of dates, chronological
orders, amount, names and other elements in which the data are segregated into different
columns in an excel file (Jacobs, Lyons and Rademacher, 2018).
After adding sorting and filtering option in the spreadsheet, two separate columns have been
added immediately beside the betting score and original score for both team 1 and team 2. “IF”
function has been used in these columns, G and J columns respectively with the formula reading,
=IF(E3=F3,TRUE,FALSE) (Stout and Schwartz, 2017).
As a result of the above function, the score of betting files shall be compared against the score of
original file and the results will be shown in G and J column. G and J column will show “TRUE”
if no changes has been made to the data. In case there is changes between the original score and
the score as per the betting mastermind’s file then, these columns will highlight “FALSE”. G
column is for comparison of score of team 1 and column J is for comparison of score of team 2
(Peltier, 2017). The above formula [=IF(E3=F3,TRUE,FALSE)] has been copied and pasted into
all the rows corresponding to all the matches played during 1897 and 2018 to ensure that all the
games where data have been changed in the file recovered from the laptop of the master mind is
identified. The image below shows six of such matches where the score of both teams have been
changed (Sauter, 2015).

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Meaning of the findings:
It is clear from the above investigation that the betting is for real in AFL as there have
been number of matches where the original data does not matched with the manipulated data
recovered from the laptop of the betting mastermind arrested. The reality of betting fraud is clear
from the above investigation (Edlin et. al. 2015). In fact what makes the matter worse is that the
changes in data of games is a continuing phenomenon since 1992 and it has been observed in
2018 also. The following images would clear the above observation.
The changes in data in 1992 is visible from the above image as the G column indicates FALSE
sing. Further the image below shows the changes made to the data in games played in the year
2018 (Chang and Myers, 2015).

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Thus, from the above it is clear that betting is a continuous phenomenon in AFL and it is still
very much present in the matches played as even 2018 match data has also been changed as the
manipulated data as per the betting file does not agree with the original score (Bishop, 2017).

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2018]
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