I notified the DietBet company via support@waybetter.com and received a reassuring response that DietBet has rules in place to preempt cheating and every weigh-in is reviewed by one of its official monitors before being approved. So, I went back and checked on a few more participants. Just about every other person had such seesaw weight patterns – a steady loss of weight during competition, followed by an immediate gain of weight in the interim.

HealthyWage (a competing weight loss website) has a Yo-Yo Rule where a player must start his HealthyWager at or below the weight that he ended the last challenge. I suggested this idea of controlling cheating to DietBet. Their response reiterated the rules in place and essentially ignored my suggestion.

And that leads me to the following observation: It is in DietBet’s corporate interests to encourage as much participation in its games as possible. The larger the pot, the larger its share of the winnings. Provided there are enough losers to compensate for the number of cheaters, there is no financial incentive for DietBet to vigorously pursue cheaters.

Personally, I won’t be participating in any more DietBet competitions. I don’t wish to support the cheaters. I don’t wish to support a company that provides a platform for such cheating.