The field of sociology often discusses fraud. In this paper, we review some previous studies, show that game theory explains the mechanism of fraud, and present new issues in fraud research.
Through our efforts, we clarified that previous studies on fraud have used two different approaches : one is criminal sociology and the other focusing on the meaning of social action. The former emphasizes on the social factors that motivate people to commit fraud ; the latter is interested in the relation between lies told by con men and social institutions and the features of the interactions between con men and victims.
In addition, a hypergame analysis of fraud revealed four conditions in which fraud can succeed ; 1) the con man prefers to commit fraud ; 2) in a situation created by the con man, wherein he prefers to ask the victim to pay money ; 3) the victim prefers to pay the money ; and 4) the con man must escape detection.
While the first to third conditions have been studied using the two aforementioned approaches, the fourth has not received enough attention. Hence, in this paper, we argue that this condition is important for studies of fraud and consider the mechanisms used by con men to escape detection from a sociological viewpoint, for example, the theory of the stranger or the social distribution of knowledge and family structures.

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