betfair-on-the-front-foot-over-sport-gambling-cheats

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Betfair on the front foot over sport betting cheats

21 August 2011

The leader of the worldwide Olympic movement, Jacques Rogge, has actually called match-fixing and corruption as big a danger to sporting integrity as doping.

Unfortunately, sporting scandal and attempted jagged betting coups have all too often fit, as current football match-fixing events in Finland and South Korea have shown.

Those events, like in 2015's furore surrounding three Pakistan cricketers - subsequently given restrictions - and the bowling of "no balls" against England at Lords, were connected to prohibited gaming rings.

But for legitimate betting firms, whether conventional High Street outlets or more recent online betting organisations, these occasions all tend to be lumped together in the public's mind under the one heading of "betting".

"Much of what we have actually seen has actually been from the unlawful Asian markets - there is a huge difference between them and ourselves," states a senior investigator at online gambling company Betfair.

"But it is all about understandings, and people just see the headings about betting without looking deeper."

It is to avoid such tarnished associations with crooked gambling rings that companies such as Betfair go to great lengths to monitor the betting patterns on its site.

'Prevent, discover, examine'
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The company is the world's significant betting exchange - a set-up that enables gamblers to bank on sporting events at chances set by other bettors.

Betfair makes its cash by taking a commission from winning bets.

The company's headquarters ignores the River Thames at Hammersmith, west London, and houses Betfair's corporate, technical, marketing, and user-experience groups.

But probably the most important is the stability group of eight individuals, which utilizes computer system and analytical tools to avoid criminal activity being conducted in connection with sport and gaming, and to keep crooks off the Betfair website.

"Our task is to prevent, discover, and examine," says the Betfair detective, or "integrity analyst", who asks not to be named because of his work in handling criminal activity.

"We work carefully with the authorities and other law-enforcement agencies, gambling regulators, sports bodies, and organisations which promote accountable gaming."

The difficulties facing Betfair range from possible match-fixing driven by unlawful betting rings, to money-laundering, to people using taken or cloned credit cards to wager with, to sportspeople using inside details.

Betfair hosts odds on more than 40 sports and at any time there can be as numerous as 11,600 betting markets on the website.

Customers sign terms and conditions which enables Betfair to check carefully their background and, in particular suspicious situations, to pass their details on to the pertinent sporting or legal authorities.

In addition it has also established an early-warning computer system program called BetMon, which governing bodies can use to view betting patterns (but not client details) on the Betfair site for their sports.

And itself on its audit path to aid the authorities or sports authorities in any investigation.

"Records are kept of each login and bet, occasion, selection, stake, odds, earnings - if any - and method of bet, along with the IP address of the computer system used to make the bet," states the Betfair analyst.

"Call are also taped, too, for possible future referral."

Indeed, Betfair takes pride in its capability to find suspicious betting patterns - in among the yohaig code most prominent cases it famously declined to settle wagers on a tennis match featuring Russian player Nikolay Davydenko in 2007.

The Russian retired from a video game in the Poland Open, and this promotion code came after "irregular" betting patterns on his match.

The company, which has arrangements with a number of sporting bodies, including the ATP and other tennis authorities - to whom it reported it worries in the Davydenko case.

The player was consequently cleared of match-fixing by the ATP.
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Sporting advice

Often criminal betting rings target players or match officials in an attempt to manufacture the desired outcome of a sporting fixture.

Which is where individuals such as Simon Taylor, who has actually been the General Secretary of the Professional Players Federation (PPF) in the UK since 2006, been available in.

He is likewise is head of policy at EU Athletes, the European federation of gamer associations.
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In 2010, the PPF signed an arrangement with the Remote Gambling Association and its members, consisting of Betfair, to develop and deliver education programs to gamers on sports betting and the prospective risks.

This year the programme will be delivered in person to 5,500 sportspersons and females in the UK.
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"Our research study showed that 40% of footballers did not understand the guidelines about not wagering on competitions they were involved in," he says, mentioning the significance of player information.

Mr Taylor said that often those captured up in unlawful betting pressures were young professional athletes, especially footballers, who could come under pressure from criminals who befriend them.

Those at the other end of their careers are also a possible threat.

"You might have a veteran looking for one last pay day, but we mention that you will never get a job later on as a coach or in sporting PR. That is not going to occur if your name is ruined," says Mr Taylor.

His organisation also provides advice and assistance for sportspersons and females who might struggle with problem gambling.

'Memorandums of understanding'
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Eyebrows were raised amongst many commentators and industry figures in March when Betfair said it would be partially heading offshore.

By moving its gaming licence from the UK to Gibraltar the firm was no longer bound by any statutory responsibility to notify Britain's Gambling Commission of any suspicious betting.

However, Betfair says that not just is it regulated by the Gibraltar authorities, it likewise has memorandums of understanding (MU) with numerous sporting bodies to notify them of suspicious activity.

This consists of Mr Rogge's International Olympic Committee (IOC), which signed up before the Beijing 2008 Games and can request the identities of account holders who wager suspiciously.

"Our UK licence needed us to notify any suspicious info to the Gambling Commission," states Betfair's Susannah Gill.

"Technically we do not have to that anymore, however we will continue to do this. That will continue indefinitely.

"We understood back in the early days that details sharing is central to sports stability."

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Professional Players Federation

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