PFL Challenger Series event flagged for suspicious betting activity

The Professional Fighters League (PFL) is under investigation after an event of theirs was flagged for suspicious betting activity.

Last Friday night on April 1, the PFL put on a Challenger Series event that was intended to showcase some new faces within the mixed martial arts sphere. However, those who decided to bet on the outcome of the fights involved were left with their accounts under review over the weekend after some strange activity was seen in the hours leading up to the show.

A string of fighters became overwhelming favourites to secure the win and all of those who had heavy bets put on them did, in fact, come out victorious in their contests.

Now, it has been revealed the fights were actually pretaped on March 25 – leading to rampant speculation that many bettors were aware of who had won prior to the broadcast getting underway.

PFL is in hot water for allegedly not disclosing one of their challenger events wasn’t live when Sportsbooks still took bets on the event’s fights thinking it was live. https://t.co/jzeWIfO9dj

— Luke Thomas🏋️‍♀️ (@lthomasnews) April 5, 2022

TONIGHT PFL Challenger Series brings you their pro debuts!
Check out all the action LIVE at 9PM ET anywhere you can stream @fubosports #PFLonfuboTV pic.twitter.com/fO6dgfr3UA

— Fubo (@fuboTV) April 1, 2022

DraftKings provided the following statement to ESPN in the wake of the scandal becoming apparent.

“At the time we believed the event in question was live. After noticing unusual activity on a number of fights, DraftKings removed the markets [on its own accord],” according to the statement. “We are working with regulatory bodies to determine the appropriate course of action.”

Quotes via ESPN

The long and short of this situation is that PFL could be in some real hot water here with many using this as an opportunity to dub them the “minor leagues”. While it’s possible this is little more than an error of judgement, it’s a developing story that we’ll provide updates on as we get them.