History Main / NotCheatingUnlessYouGetCaught

* In the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' Assassins' Guild, student assassins are given a list of places which are out-of-bounds. This is defined ''not'' as places they can't go, but as places they can't be seen by a master, which gives them lots of practice at the stealth skills Guild members are required to have. Even better, the Assassin's Guild Diary states that any boy ''not'' caught being out of bounds at least once per year gets detention unless they can prove that they were there but were not caught. It's considered a pass on your final exam if you assassinate your examiner -- though, considering he's an experienced assassin himself, you're advised to be ''very sure'' that you will succeed before trying.

** Bodybuilding is rife with performance enhancing drugs such as testosterone, anabolic androgenic steroids, human growth hormone, and insulin which allow competitors to pack on more muscle than would be possible through diet and exercise alone. Since bodybuilders are also graded on their conditioning—meaning the shedding of fat and water-weight before a show to better reveal the texture of and separations between their muscles—they will use diuretics to get strategically dehydrated for the much-desired hard and dry look. Drugs are bodybuilding's open secret. The official position of the International Federation of Bodybuilding is that they comply with the standards of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and they will sanction any bodybuilder who is caught using [=PEDs=]. Because of that, if a journalist or documentarian asks an active pro bodybuilder if they use such drugs, they will deny it and claim that they got their physique from only diet and supplements. Despite this, many famous former and retired bodybuilders such as Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger and Dorian Yates have disclosed their own drug use, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of IFBB pro bodybuilders are "enhanced". The attitude throughout the "Golden Era" of the 60s, 70s, and 80s was, "don't ask, don't tell". The Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990 caused a scare because it established criminal penalties for coaches or promoters who provided steroids to athletes, no longer just the athletes themselves; for that reason, 1990 became the first and only year in which the Mr. Olympia and Arnold Classic competitions took a serious anti-drug stance and tested their contestants for anabolics. This proved very unpopular due to Shawn Ray being stripped of his 1st place Arnold Classic title when it turned out he’d failed a drug test[[note]]he'd recover from that setback by subsequently taking 3rd at the Olympia[[/note]], and all the physiques on the Mr. Olympia stage later that year being "off" because everyone jumped off their steroid cycles early in order to pass the testing. As it turned out, bodybuilding managed to fly under the government's radar compared to more mainstream sports such as Baseball and Professional Wrestling (The WBF, Wrestling/VinceMcMahon's short-lived attempt to start a new bodybuilding organization to rival the IFBB, failed partially due to the pressure Vince felt to enforce drug testing), and as soon as the IFBB realized that they weren’t under serious government scrutiny, they quietly stopped testing for anabolics. The rules on the books still say that they reserve the right to test athletes at any time for banned substances, but in practice they don't test for anything except diuretics, and when they do pop someone for diuretic use it's just because they got unlucky or weren't smart enough to not get caught. If anything, the Mass Monster Era that we've been in since the 90s has gone in the direction of increasing drug use as the size game becomes more and more competitive.

* The trope name is spoken almost verbatim in ''Series/{{Andromeda}}'' by Gaheris Rhade to [[TheCaptain Hunt]] in a {{flashback}} when Dylan catches him cheating at {{Go}}. Rhade is visibly confused as to why Dylan is angry at him. He naturally assumes that everyone behaves that way, if they want to survive.

* ''Manga/TheLegendOfKoizumi''
** It's practically understood that cheating is part of the game as long as you don't get caught. And sometimes, it's still not considered cheating even if you ''do'' get caught if you do it in an audacious enough manner, like when [[TheHero Koizumi's]] effort in cheating [[spoiler:[[IncendiaryExponent caused his entire body to be set ablaze.]]]] Getting caught, however, can be fatal [[spoiler:As Otto Skorzony finds out when Dubya catches his tileswapping trick.]]

* Used very darkly in ''Manga/SuperGals'': a [[PaedoHunt pedophile]] teacher is harassing one of Sayo's friends, using ImAManICantHelpIt as an excuse. When the girl calls him out on his immorality, the teacher smugly answers that in modern society, all that counts is keeping up a respectable appearance and if nobody has proof that he committed a crime, he didn't commit a crime. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for him, Sayo was hiding nearby [[CaughtOnTape with a recorder in her hands.]]]]

* Used very darkly in ''Manga/SuperGals'': a [[PaedoHunt pedophile]] teacher is harassing one of Sayo's friends, using ImAManICantHelpIt as an excuse. When the girl calls him out on his immorality, the teacher smugly answers that in modern society, all that counts is keeping up a respectable appearence and if nobody has proof that he committed a crime, he didn't commit a crime. [[spoiler: Unfortunately for him, Sayo was hiding nearby [[CaughtOnTape with a recorder in her hands.]]]]
* ''Manga/KenganAsura'''s titular Kengan battles have one restriction for the competitors: you can't bring weapons. This is enforced by a security search and pat-down before the match. Thing is, the restriction also only really applies to that pat-down; if a weapon makes it through undetected, it can be used without breaking the rules, as openly as you'd like. Technically, it's still a violation, but reporting it would imply the opponent failed to notice a cheater in the patdown stage and is therefore a fool, and it would imply the Kengan organizer responsible for the pat-down failed to do their job right and therefore call the organization into question, so it's generally accepted to never call it out.

* Megatron once tried doing this against Optimus Prime in ''WesternAnimation/TheTransformers'' episode "Heavy Metal War"; he challenges Optimus to a duel of honor, with the loser exiling themselves, only to use a machine to transfer his underlings' powers into him and sending the Constructicons out to destroy the Autobots' computer, so it wouldn't be able to warn them of the duplicity. It doesn't work, in the end, but Optimus [[WhatAnIdiot did completely miss the obvious signs of cheating on Megs' part during the battle]].

** Amusingly, all the cheating was for naught; aircraft carriers proved to be vastly more important than battleships, which played only a relatively minor role in the war. The only real battleship vs battleship engagement in the whole of World War II was pretty much pointless. And the nations which focused on aircraft carriers instead of battleships had an advantage. Incidentally, this was exactly how the Americans, the authors of the treaty, got around it.

* In ''Film/StarTrek2009'', the alternate Kirk was court-martialed. But the plot interferes before Alternate-Kirk has a proper chance to defend himself, so it is never seen if he would have been able to talk his way out of the situation or gotten expelled. Presumably something similar happened to Kirk-Prime, but if he was being a bit less of an ass about the whole thing (and if he had some powerful friends), he might have gotten away with it. The difference may have been due to the manner in which they cheated. Alternate-Kirk simply disabled the shields of the enemy vessels and destroyed them, while Kirk-Prime (according to the ExpandedUniverse) reprogrammed the enemy's behavior to respect the reputation he intended to build as captain such that they would allow him to proceed unmolested. So while Alternate-Kirk cheated in a way that he could plausibly have hidden and gotten away with entirely if not for the fact that the game was {{unwinnable}}, Kirk-Prime took RefugeInAudacity.

* In a very early ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' episode, during the Chunin exams, the ninjas-in-training are given a written test with the unusual rule that they cannot be caught cheating more than four times. So, needless to say, all of the skilled students discreetly use their ninja skills to do so without getting caught. Which is, of course, [[HiddenPurposeTest the entire point]], as the test is absurdly difficult (Sakura is the only one who actually knew any answers) and two planted fake students were given the answers ahead of time. Naruto himself, however, unwittingly engaged in LoopholeAbuse due to the aforementioned nature of the exam. [[spoiler:Since he never ''attempted'' to cheat, he was never caught, and thus passed the exam on those grounds -- even though he never even ''tried'' to answer one question. In addition, the rules had been laid out that an student loses points for wrong answers, ''not'' that they earn points for correct answers. So a blank sheet of paper counts for full credit. The whole thing was in fact a SecretTestOfCharacter: the examiners were testing the candidates' espionage skills, and then with the all-or-nothing last question, their willingness to take on a SuicideMission (accepting the opportunity to answer the question in the first place is a passing grade).]]

* Manga/{{Toriko}}'s Gourmet Casino arc lives and dies on this trope. Coco's future-seeing abilities allow him to effortlessly win practically all of the casino's games. Livebearer, the arc's BigBad, on the other hand, runs a game that is designed to give him every advantage he can think of.

-->'''Applejack:''' Applebloom, I am disgusted! Winners never get caught taking drugs. \\

* Drow from ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''. Their entire ''legal system'' is based around this trope. As an example, in the city of Menzoberranzan if a Drow Noble House wants to eliminate another Noble House they must do it in a way that leaves no member of the eliminated house alive, since only the attacked house has the right of accusation against the attacking house, and are the only ones allowed to witness. Anyone else who happens to see the attack are merely "spectators." If even one member of the attacked house is alive to accuse the attackers, the attacking family will, according to the law, be eradicated. If no one is left alive to witness, everyone will act as if the now deceased house [[{{Unperson}} never existed in the first place]], except for vaguely praising the attackers for a successful raid.

** According to the official rules, if a player lands on property owned by another player, the property owner has until the ''second'' player after that rolls the dice to demand rent. After that, the player gets away scot free. "[[AvertedTrope No sneaks]]" is a popular house rule that removes this clause; if the property owner suddenly remembers the oversight later, they are still owed rent.

** Daniel J. D'Arby, user of the Osiris Stand, has this as his motto. For example, it's not ''his'' fault that Polnareff didn't know that, when they were betting on what meat a cat would eat first, the cat belonged to D'Arby (and thus D'Arby could choose which piece would be eaten). Though an interesting thing about Daniel is that he equally applies this to both himself and the person he plays against. To him, cheating is simply part of the game. Jotaro later uses this mantra against Daniel's brother, Terrence.
*** Amusingly, Daniel's ability to spot cheating loses out to Jotaro, who simply bluffs him with a completely unreadable poker face. Meanwhile, Jotaro beats Terrence's ability to see through bluffs[[note]]His Stand lets him ask "yes or no" questions and then read the answer in his opponent's aura[[/note]] by discreetly cheating with the aid of his grandfather Joseph.

* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Conference Washington Naval Conference]] laid down strict limitations on the construction of warships, with the idea of preventing an out-and-out, ruinously expensive battleship arms race (similar to the one Britain and Germany engaged in prior to UsefulNotes/WorldWarI; the war had barely ended and Britain, the US and Japan were already in the opening stages of a new three-way arms race, with massive battleship programs planned out that none of them could actually afford[[note]]Japan's program in particular would've had a cost exceeding the entire economic output of the nation[[/note]]). Of course, the nations that didn't [[LoopholeAbuse wiggle through the loopholes]] (it's 10,000 tons and it carries 15 fast-firing main guns, but it's still classified as an innocent-sounding and unrestricted "light cruiser" just because the guns are six-inchers) decided "screw tonnage limitations!" and started laying down ships that exceeded the tonnage limitations by 25 to 40%. Special mention goes to the Japanese, who categorically denied Western rumors that they [[ExactWords were building forty- to fifty-thousand ton battleships]] (when the limit was 35,000 tons). The battleships in question turned out to be the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamato_class_battleship ''Yamato'' class]], which weighed in at ''65,000 tons''. Nobody outside Japan knew their exact weight until ''after'' UsefulNotes/WorldWarII.

* If crimes are viewed as "cheating" at life, this is basically the attitude of most criminals. Especially if their motive is profit rather than revenge or just sociopathy. Not only does a thief risk going to prison, they don't get to keep what they stole, either.[[note]]Not that they were ever going to in the first place.[[/note]] But there are always criminals who are undeterred by prison time and other punishment, because they expect to not get caught.

* CX Debate has what are called "diet cards" or "Skinny arguments". Some arguments with the exact same evidence are used so commonly that people often don't "flow"[[note]]basically an extremely fast and compressed form of note taking[[/note]] and simply right an abbreviation when they are used, and often take the time prepare their own argument when they are being read. A diet card has the reader read off a card that is highlighted even less than a normal one, often to the point it doesn't make an actual argument. The hope is that the judge and opposition won't catch this (and they usually don't) and treat it as though they read the full argument. Since the OneStatToRuleThemAll in CX debate is the ability to make arguments and present evidence faster than your opponent can counter them, being able to shave a few seconds off an argument is a huge advantage.

** Bodybuilding is rife with performance enhancing drugs such as testosterone, anabolic androgenic steroids, human growth hormone, and insulin which allow competitors to pack on more muscle than would be possible through diet and exercise alone. Since bodybuilders are also graded on their conditioning—meaning the shedding of fat and water-weight before a show to better reveal the texture of and separations between their muscles—they will use diuretics to get strategically dehydrated for the much-desired hard and dry look. Drugs are bodybuilding's open secret. The official position of the International Federation of Bodybuilding is that they comply with the standards of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and they will sanction any bodybuilder who is caught using [=PEDs=]. Because of that, if a journalist or documentarian asks an active pro bodybuilder if they use such drugs, they will deny it and claim that they got their physique from only diet and supplements. Despite this, many famous former and retired bodybuilders such as Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger and Dorian Yates have disclosed their own drug use, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of IFBB pro bodybuilders are "enhanced". The attitude throughout the "Golden Era" of the 60s, 70s, and 80s was, "don't ask, don't tell". Fear over the Anabolic Steroids Control Act of 1990 caused that to be the only year in which the Mr. Olympia and Arnold Classic competitions took a serious anti-drug stance and tested their contestants for anabolics. This proved very unpopular due to Shawn Ray being stripped of his 1st place Arnold Classic title when it turned out he’d failed a drug test[[note]]he'd recover from that setback by subsequently taking 3rd at the Olympia[[/note]], and all the physiques on the Mr. Olympia stage later that year being "off" because everyone jumped off their steroid cycles early in order to pass the testing. As it turned out, bodybuilding managed to fly under the government's radar compared to more mainstream sports such as Baseball and Professional Wrestling (The WBF, Wrestling/VinceMcMahon's short-lived attempt to start a new bodybuilding organization to rival the IFBB, failed partially due to the pressure Vince felt to enforce drug testing), and as soon as the IFBB realized that they weren’t under serious government scrutiny, they quietly stopped testing for anabolics. The rules on the books still say that they reserve the right to test athletes at any time for banned substances, but in practice they don't test for anything except diuretics, and when they do pop someone for diuretic use it's just because they got unlucky or weren't smart enough to not get caught. If anything, the Mass Monster Era that we've been in since the 90s has gone in the direction of increasing drug use as the size game becomes more and more competitive.

** Natural bodybuilding shows are supposed to be [=PED=]-free, since they actually have mandatory drug testing and their standard of size and conditioning takes into account that these guys are not realistically going to look as huge or shredded as IFBB pros. Despite this there are still shenanigans, especially because anybody who uses doping and gets away with it will be going against guys who actually ''are'' all-natural. It is possible to fool a polygraph test, and the commonly used urine test is not the most sensitive or accurate method. There’s also the problem that testing is only right before the competition instead of year-round, which allows a cheater to spend most of the year getting bigger through doping, and then stop with enough time left until testing day for the traces to leave their stystem. So they may pass as drug-free on competition day, but a lot of them aren’t necessarily natural year-round. Some fans and commentators believe the "fake natty" problem is so widespread that it’s making a joke out of natural bodybuilding.

* It can also happen taking away a title change without the win. In one Wrestling/{{N|ationalWrestlingAlliance}}WA title match Dusty Rhodes had seemingly beat Wrestling/RicFlair for the title despite interference by Wrestling/ArnAnderson and a ref bump to Tommy Young. A second ref came out to count Rhodes pinfall, but Young overturned it saying he had been prepared to call for Flair's DQ as soon as Anderson enter the ring, but hadn't been able to.
* This also happens retroactively, usually when a title change or other "major" event happens around the time of a contract ending or injury/suspension or the like, and is explained as "going over the rules/results more closely." One of the most infamous involved the Rockers (Wrestling/ShawnMichaels and Marty Janetty) defeating the Hart Foundation (Bret Hart and Jim Neidhart) for the tag-team championships. Unfortunately, during the 2-out-of-3 contest, one of the ring ropes broke which lead to an ugly mess of a match that would be virtually impossible to clean up for television; between that and the then-WWF firing Neidhart shortly thereafter, the titles were given back with the explanation of an "obscure rule" involving broken ring equipment, and was ''never even referenced'' on TV as if the Foundation never lost them.

* This is how Wrestling/TheRock managed to retain his Intercontinental title against Wrestling/KenShamrock at the 1998 Wrestling/RoyalRumble. The Rock had used a pair of brass knuckles on Shamrock when the refs back was turned, then stuffed the knuckles into ''Shamrocks'' trunks. When the hit wasn't enough to keep Shamrock down, Shamrock hit Rock with a belly to belly suplex and won the title.... until Rock complained to the referee that Shamrock had hit ''him'' with the brass knuckles and when the referee searched Shamrock he found the knuckles and reversed the decision.

* Wrestling/EddieGuerrero lampshaded it (his most popular entrance music flat-out told everyone that, ''"I lie, I cheat, I steal!"''), and later in his career took to inverting it. The method he used which has endured the most is to grab a chair and hit ''the mat'' with it while the ref's back is turned before tossing the chair to his opponent before the ref turned around and [[WoundedGazelleGambit quickly feigned being the recipient of a brutal chairshot]]. Despite rules stating that the ref has to ''see'' the chair shot happen in order to call a DQ, this worked on multiple occasions.

** There's actually an official version of Monopoly where you're encouraged to cheat. You lay 5 cheats down at the start of the game, and if someone is able to pull one off without somebody noticing, they get a special bonus, depending on the cheat.

Compare CantYouReadTheSign and DoWrongRight. Sometimes the villain in WhatYouAreInTheDark, or the foolhardly fellow teenager in YouthIsWastedOnTheDumb urges this trope to encourage something actually wrong.

* Invoked in a chapter of ''Manga/KaguyaSamaLoveIsWar'', where Chika is found using marked cards. She calls out this trope by name as justification for her actually being very clever, while the others quietly point out that this doesn't really apply because she ''did'' get caught.

* The Tour de France, the most challenging and most prestigious bicycle race, has a long and storied history of cheating. Most people have heard of the decades worth of scandals involving performance-enhancing drugs ([=PEDs=]), but the early years of the race involved much more overt methods of cheating. The second Tour de France (in 1904) had so much cheating that it almost resulted in permanent cancellation. Multiple cyclists were disqualified for cheating, and the 5th place finisher was declared the winner since everybody ahead of him was disqualified. And he had ''also'' cheated at least once, but for whatever reason was only given a warning. Much of the cheating was amusingly audacious (skipping sections of the race by getting rides in cars or trains), but it also included sabotage (nails were laid out in roads to cause flat tires) and even violence (masked men in a car attacking the then-leading cyclists, and fans of some cyclists threw rocks at everyone else as they passed).

* In ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'', for a full Lotus Assassin to kill another in their fortress is punishable.[[note]]Students are expendable.[[/note]]. But if a master happens to fall into the golem machinery, or gets crushed by a falling clay golem shell, then they clearly deserved it for their carelessness.