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Mitigating the risk of tanking in multi-stage tournaments

Author

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  • László Csató

    (Hungarian Research Network (HUN-REN)
    Corvinus University of Budapest)

Abstract

Multi-stage tournaments consisting of a round-robin group stage followed by a knockout phase are ubiquitous in sports. However, this format is incentive incompatible if at least 2 teams from a group advance to the knockout stage where the brackets are predetermined. A model is developed to quantify the risk of tanking in these contests. The suggested approach is applied to the 2022 FIFA World Cup to uncover how its design could have been improved by changing group labelling (a reform that has received no attention before) and the schedule of group matches. Scheduling is found to be a surprisingly weak intervention compared to previous results on the risk of collusion in a group. The probability of tanking, which is disturbingly high around 25%, cannot be reduced by more than 3 percentage points via these policies. Tournament organisers need to consider more fundamental changes against tanking.

Suggested Citation

  • László Csató, 2025. "Mitigating the risk of tanking in multi-stage tournaments," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 344(1), pages 135-151, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:annopr:v:344:y:2025:i:1:d:10.1007_s10479-024-06311-y
    DOI: 10.1007/s10479-024-06311-y
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    Cited by:

    1. L'aszl'o Csat'o & Andr'as Gyimesi, 2026. "Match classification in the last round of four-team round-robin tournaments," Papers 2605.25610, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2026.
    2. L'aszl'o Csat'o & Andr'as Gyimesi, 2026. "A probabilistic match classification model for sports tournaments," Papers 2601.09673, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2026.

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