Steven D. Levitt

I can’t say that I am surprised by the latest sumo headline from The Associated Press:

Japan’s scandal-tainted sport of sumo wrestling is facing new allegations that senior wrestlers used cell phones to plan how to fix matches.

Japanese media reported Wednesday that police have found suspicious text messages on several wrestlers’ phones suggesting they were planning to fix bouts and going so far as to detail how one would attack and how he wanted his opponent to fall.

The text messages were found on the phones of wrestlers in sumo’s second-highest division. Japan’s Kyodo news service says the texts indicate that the wrestlers routinely fixed bouts and charged hundreds of thousands of yen (thousands of dollars) per match to do so.

I wonder why the police were looking at the cell phones of the wrestlers? Is it illegal to throw a match in sumo? I wouldn’t think so. They must have been after something else.