Sport is made for betting

The anti-wagering media bandwagon has dozens of new members this week, all weighing in an industry they have absolutely no idea about. I'm all for getting the betting industry into the mainstream but it shits me no end when they roll out reports and celebrities who simply don't have a clue what they are talking about and don't bother to check basic facts which key arguments in their story. If this was the financial industry, making errors like this would have them in all sorts of trouble, but the same level of regulation doesn't apply because finance stock markets are supposedly all legitimate and serious, whereas sports betting is just a bit of fun for people who can never win in the long-term... according to the media. This week we have seen the sting by the Telegraph which, on the face of it, looks to be a tremendous piece of investigative work into fixing in English football. But the headlines around it are over-sensationalised yet again. Delroy Facey, a former pla...

Good article from CNN about match-fixing and how stubborn football authorities are finally starting to realise just how big and how widespread the problem is. Football's match-fixing problem (CNN) -- It was the highest profile, and most embarrassing, sanction imaginable. The decision by the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) to withdraw champions Fenerbahce from this season's Champions League on Wednesday, due to allegations of endemic match fixing and bribery, shocked the football world far outside arguably Europe's most passionate footballing nation. For Turkish football fans, it's the equivalent of Manchester United being stripped of the English Premier League title; or of the New York Yankees losing the World Series over corruption charges. Last year's runners up, Trabzonspor, will take Fenerbahce's place, but the shock waves remain...

Greece, Italy and Turkey are making strides in rooting out match-fixing in their football leagues - there's a long way to go though. Don't believe for a moment that these are isolated cases... Riots follow ban for 2 clubs in Greek league Italian authorities rush to end match-fixing scandal Turkish league endorses play-offs amid match-fixing allegations

Amid all the headlines for Greek and Turkish football, I hadn't seen this one before... Czech team Olomouc sanctioned for match-fixing The Czech football association said Thursday it had sanctioned Czech top-flight side Sigma Olomouc with a loss of nine points and a €164,000 for a 2009 match-fixing scandal. The association's disciplinary committee fined Olomouc for an attempt to bribe Bohemians Prague players with 300,000 koruna ahead of their league game in May 2009 to secure a place in the Europa League. Sigma's keeper Petr Drobisz, accused of having delivered the money, was handed an 18-month ban and a fine worth 200,000 koruna. Soft penalty in my opinion - where's the punishment for those in charge of the club who were behind it? Shooting the messenger (or courier in this case) is pathetic.

... and bring in a lie detector. Well, it's a start at least, but the problem goes much deeper than that. If players are disenchanted with their clubs or the wrong type of people are involved with the club, then their heads can easily be turned. The new rules need to encourage whistle-blowers, to keep the wrong people out of the locker rooms, provide players with a long-term future in the sport rather than making them survive on a low base wage and to see the K-League share information with the betting firms. Simply removing the option to bet locally, only makes it easier for match-fixers. Every bet then goes via illegal channels, mostly outside South Korea, and without any chance of tracing it. Regulation and establishing an audit trail is the best way forward..... K-League ups base salary after match-fixing stain The top local professional football league said Monday it will improve the welfare of its players and hand out severe punishments for corruption in response to a ...

This is utterly ridiculous. In a land where opponents of the self-appointed President simply disappear off the streets, and the police regularly get a slice off proceedings from armed robberies, the head muppet of FIFA has joined with Robert Mugabe in declaring match-fixing to be evil and that all people found to be involved in football corruption will be banned for life. FIFA Join Hands With Interpol On Match Fixing Investigations: Blatter Harare, July 05, 2011 - FIFA president, Sepp Blatter has hinted on a possible life ban on all those implicated in match-fixing scandals in Zimbabwe if found guilty. “We will ban all those involved in shady deals in this country if they are found guilty. This is a country that has talent which no administrator would want to see going to waste. You have work to develop that talent and not to kill it through things such as match-fixing,” Blatter told administrators during a press conference organized for him by Zifa. The press conference was ...

You would be wrong. There are all sorts of reasons why players would agree to throw a match, or part of a match. If you go back to the famous 1919 Chicago Blacksox baseball scandal , the players involved agreed to throw the World Series against the Cincinnati Reds because they felt they were grossly underpaid by the team owner. The opportunity was there, and in came the underworld connection who liked a bet. The name Wilson Raj Perumal is infamous in match-fixing circles and if you google search him, you'll find people blaming his ego for getting caught. He borrowed money from people to start fixing matches, didn't pay them all back despite having a lavish lifestyle and posting photos on Facebook of him travelling the world... people he owed money to naturally started getting a bit pissed off. In this article , you'll read a story of how one low-level cup match in Malaysia was thrown for as little as RM200 (£42) each to six players, from an accomplice of Raj Perumal. Th...

UEFA's anti-corruption team has been busy, handing over vast amounts of evidence to the Greek and Turkish prosecutors over local match-fixing. Police announce arrests in Greek match-fixing probe Turkish football in crisis after match-fixing investigation Until big names and big clubs are brought down in these cases, it will continue on. Perhaps that won't even stop it - it hasn't stopped dodgy late-season results in Italy, but the Juventus scandal wasn't over betting, just presidential egos and putting pressure on referees... And there's plenty more on the story from Declan Hill 70,000 Copies of the ‘The Fix’ and the Prosecutor Who is Cleaning the Stables

It's getting rather messy in South Korea, the imaginatively named K-League has been infested with match-fixing and now the government is getting involved. K-League faces shutdown threat over match-fixing scandal SEOUL, Jun 30 (Reuters) - South Korea's government has threatened to "shut down" the country's professional soccer league after losing patience with an embarrassing match-fixing scandal, which is in danger of spiralling out of control. Clubs whose players are found guilty of being involved in match-fixing have been warned they face expulsion from Korea's domestic competition, local media reported on Thursday. "If K-League players are caught trying to throw matches from this July, their teams will be forced out of the league," Park Sun-kyoo, Vice Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism told South Korea's Yonhap news agency. "We will also consider shutting down the K-League in the worst-case scenario." I was quoted i...

Daniel Koellerer, widely regarded as the biggest @£%& in professional tennis, has received his just desserts today with a life ban from professional tennis and a fine of $100k. The Tennis Integrity Unit works under a shroud of secrecy so there are no official details of which matches were bent (although you could probably from a substantial list from Koellerer's schedule). From the press release : Mr Koellerer was found guilty of three charges under Article D of the 2010 Uniform Tennis Anti-Corruption Program, namely: • Contriving or attempting to contrive the outcome of an Event; • Soliciting or facilitating a Player not to use his or her best efforts in an Event; and; • Soliciting, offering or providing money, benefit or Consideration to any other covered person with the intention of negatively influencing a Player’s best efforts in any Event So the Tennis Integrity Unit has found a spine, that's great news for the game. Although, let's be honest, Dan...

Good piece from today's Daily Telegraph, detailing the grubby career of a Singaporean who wasn't interested in fair football matches.... Wilson Raj Perumal: the convicted match-fixer who ran international empire yards from Wembley To those who met him in Wembley, Rajamohan Chelliah seemed like any other respectable foreign businessman with a healthy interest in football. Described as “humble”, “polite” and “smartly dressed”, the 45 year-old did nothing to alert the suspicion of his landlord, his neighbours or many of his friends during his seven-month stay in London. But the quiet Singaporean was in fact Wilson Raj Perumal, a convicted match-fixer on the run from the police, who was busily masterminding an international empire from his one-bedroom flat in the shadow of Wembley Stadium. One thing is fairly clear from the article, but conveniently not mentioned - the easiest matches to manipulate are the small-fry ones where players aren't earning much and are pre...

Two games played in an international friendly double-header at a Turkish resort, none of the teams involved are ranked in the FIFA Top 50, and no local representation either. Gee, doesn't sound fishy at all. Oh, and all SEVEN goals across the two matches were from penalties.... FIFA to probe friendly matches FIFA have opened an investigation into last Wednesday's international friendly double-header in Antalya after heavy betting was discovered following the award of seven penalties in the two games. Bulgaria and Estonia played out a 2-2 draw hours after Latvia had beaten Bolivia 2-1 at the Turkish resort, with all seven goals coming from the spot.

Could sport be fighting back against the corrupt individuals who wish to poison their respective games to line their own pockets? Encouraging signs this week with cricket and rugby league both acting to stem the tide. In cricket, first the British Crown Prosecution Service announced it was charging the three Pakistan cricketers with obtaining and accepting corrupt payments, and conspiracy to cheat. Bear in mind that the CPS was the authority who were laughed out of court when trying to convict leading jockey Kieran Fallon of pulling horses a few years ago. Let's hope they've got their act together since then. Long drawn out cases which ultimately fail ruin reputations and make lawyers rich. A day later, the ICC have come down hard on the three players, with minimum suspensions of five years. Expect appeals from each player pleading their innocence first, and then for leniency. There's legs in this case yet, but it's encouraging to see the ICC impose serious penal...

Settle down, it's nothing from Melbourne but the bent-as-a-three-bob-note ATP match from St Petersburg in October between Filippo Volandri and Teymuraz Gabashvili. The Evening Standard reports that the Tennis Integrity Unit is investigating the circumstances around this match. I posted twice on this match originally, here and then a day later here . Volandri will almost certainly retire this year anyway, so I suspect any penalty will be meaningless anyway.

Courtesy of Tennisform A betting racket has rocked the ongoing Chennai Open tennis tournament in the city reports the Deccan Chronicle. The event organisers unearthed the scam after an interrogation of four foreign nationals — two Germans, an Italian and a Russian, who were caught betting live from the stadium through their gadgets. All of them belong to the international betting syndicate and have come all the way to Chennai only for online gambling. Fernando Soler, the tournament director, confirmed the betting incident. “They were caught but let off with a warning,” he said. However, a Tamil Nadu Tennis Association official added that the city police officials visited their hotels and interrogated them. “The ATP has taken photos of the accused and noted down their passport details, which will be circulated to tournaments across the world to curb the betting,” informed the senior official. With a time difference of 15 seconds between the live match and online scoring system, tennis...

Worrying signs north of the border as Scottish football has had some very unusual matches of late, backed up by suspicious betting patterns. The common denominator in both matches: Hearts. Motherwell midfielder Steve Jennings is in the spotlight this week after his red card in Tuesday night's match against Hearts was predicted by a lot of punters, particularly new ones, wanting to have bets well above the average for this usually trivial market. Several bookmakers have reported clusters of bets being placed on 'A Red Card to be awarded' at 10/1 on this match, far and above the average for a televised SPL match, with a widespread of accts, lumpy bets and numerous new accounts, particularly from the Liverpool area, where Jennings has links from one of his previous clubs, Tranmere. SPL - Jennings in betting probe over red card Motherwell midfielder Steve Jennings has denied any wrongdoing after bookmakers began an investigation into betting patterns over the red card he ...

BBC 5 Live are running a programme on Sunday evening devoted to match-fixing in football. Not a lot of new ground by the sound of this article, but to those who don't follow it closely, it will be an eye-opener. Football Match fixing - how betting gives the game away Some 300 football games a season are fixed in Europe's top leagues, according to experts. The BBC's Tim Mansel gains exclusive access to Sportradar, which tracks betting on football matches all over the world, looking for evidence of suspicious behaviour. The former German football manager Sepp Herberger once famously said that people go to football matches because they do not know who will win. I have just watched a match in the almost certain knowledge not only of who would win, but with a fairly shrewd idea of what the score would be.

The state of cricket in Pakistan is still a complete mess. On one side you have Mohammed Asif cancelling his appeal against his spot-fixing suspension, virtually an admission of guilt. On the other, Salman Butt and Mohammed Aamer (Amir) are still protesting their innocence in the matter, although Aamer has been reported as saying he was influenced by peer pressure. Add to that the debacle of cricket administration in the country - trying to cover their own arses by throwing out random and baseless accusations about other countries fixing matches whilst remaining in complete denial about the state of the cancer in their own system. Yesterday's flee to safety of Zulqarnain Haider from the touring party in Dubai after allegedly receiving death threats because he defied orders to throw matches simply shows it is just more of the same. Access to players obviously isn't being blocked, and there must be others still in the squad who continue to insult their country and the world of...

Here's what Tennisform had to say about the match yesterday. 24/10 2100 - Volandri hasn't played since retiring with a right forearm injury in the Palermo challenger earlier this month. Volandri's last match off the dirt was in this event 2 years ago, where he lost 6-4 6-4 to the Russian wild card Mikhail Elgin. It goes wthout saying that close attention should be paid to the market in his match against Gabashvili. 25/10 13:52 Gabashvili will have a 2-1 win over Volandri today if the set betting is to be believed. Nearly 60K has been matched on set betting on Betfair with plenty under 3.5 on the 2-1 option. The outright market has had plenty of interest too with the price on Gabashvili yo-yoing between 1.21 and 1.52. 18:52 Gabashvili advanced to the second round at the expense of Filippo Volandri, who didn't appear to have any intention of winning this match and acted out his part of the script well. Gabashvili was heavily supported throughout the one hour...

The ATP have been getting slack on fixed matches this year so it's only fitting that after last week's Janko Tipsarevic fix, we've got another one going on right now in St Petersburg, in front of a huge crowd of about 20 spectators. Filippo Volandri is obviously supposed to lose and is doing his level best to make sure that happens. He won the first set, yet Gabashvili's price to win the match shortened. Gabashvili then goes down a break in the 2nd set, takes an injury timeout for treatment on his right knee which is now strapped heavily. Volandri makes sure he can't go further ahead by throwing in two timely double-faults to lose his serve. Gabashvili wins the second set, then Volandri hands him a very soft break in the opening game of the third. At 2-1 in the third set, the Italian conveniently calls out the trainer for treatment on his right arm and pops a pill to make it look like there are reasons for his pathetic tanking. He is now doing everything he can ...