Cheating Scandal At Cornhole World Championships
on Nov 04, 2022
The newest scandal driving the internet crazy now is called “Bag Gate” and has to do with professional cornhole players cheating the system to try and win the world championships.
During a competition at the 2022 American Cornhole League World Championships in South Carolina, professional cornhole player Devon Harbaugh filed a formal complaint against No. 1 ranked doubles team players, Mark Richards and Philip Lopez, for using illegal beanbags.
“I thought the bags were too thin,” Harbaugh asserted.
With a $15,000 prize on the line, the players were taking things very seriously and after the complaint was submitted, officials performed a bag inspection.
Even though Harbaugh was the one who filed the complaint, his competitors Lopez and Richards also wanted Harbaugh and his partner’s bags inspected as well.
Come to find out, all four of the players were using illegal beanbags that were none regulation-sized bags. Officials ultimately determined that the violations were not intentional and allowed the contests to proceed.
Trey Ryder, an American Cornhole League World Championships (ACL) spokesperson said that “It’s possible, but I’m pretty confident that it wasn’t intentional,” according to FOX News.
Lopez defending himself by saying, “I don’t know how they became illegal-sized. We did not boil the bags.”
The incident has now sparked ACL officials to start implementing more strict regulations to prevent the use of non-compliant bags.
“I think it’s funny that anyone believed it would be all friendships and rose petals forever in cornhole,” wrote one commenter on the Addicted to Cornhole Facebook page, which has 85,000 members. “Now the dirty underbelly is being exposed.”
Cornhole has attracted some big-name sponsors and is a fast-growing sport where you toss bags filled with resin beads into a hole on slanted boards, which are approximately 27 feet apart.
ACL says they have over 155,000 members and the top players can win cash prizes of up to $250,000 per year, along with endorsements and other sponsorship agreements.
Cornhole experts say that there is a competitive advantage when using lighter or thinner bags and that some players have been suspected of doing a few things to create lighter bags.
According to the establishment, bags must be six by six inches when laying on a flat surface and weigh exactly 16 ounces.
Ryder said that since the incident, the ACL is going to start implementing more regulations and structures where they will begin checking bags at random and these new rules will go into effect by the end of the year.
Ryder said the league is even “exploring infrastructure for automated bag testing.”
