They were stealing money. Why shouldn’t they be prosecuted?
Cheating in a sporting contest is a bit different from robbing a bank.
The bumbling ignorance of these two reminds me of a Mark Twain story. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. These two guys sound much like two shysters whose aliases were “The Duke” and “The Dauphin” and who bamboozled Finn and his black friend Jim as they rafted down the Mississippi. Or Twain’s story of The Celebrated Jumping Frog. Are there actually people still so bumblingly dumb as to try such a trick?! Ai-yai-yai!
Felony cheating? Been a prosecutor for 37 years and never ran across that particular offense. Fraud, certainly - grand larceny, no question.