UK bookmakers are to meet with Olympic organisers tomorrow to discuss the potential for betting-related corruption arising from the forthcoming Games in London.
Officials in attendance will include the International Olympic Committee’s head of ethics Paquerette Girard Zappelli and Kendrah Potts, lead lawyer on betting and doping for the London Organising Committee. Head of regulation for UK regulator the UK Gambling Commission Nick Tofiluk will also be at the meeting, according to the Guardian.
While full details of the bookmakers to be in attendance have not been released to the press, Ladbrokes’ director of trading Mike O’Kane, who also fulfils the role of chief bookmaker for industry integrity body the European Sports Security Association (ESSA), is understood to be chairing the meeting held in Westminster tomorrow, where attendees will discuss the detection of any suspicious betting patterns and how this information will be passed onto Olympic officials.
ESSA has early warning systems in place with bookmakers which allow it to alert sports governing bodies and industry regulators of any suspected illegal betting activity on the websites belonging to its members, which include all operators belonging to the two major online industry representative bodies, the Remote Gambling Association (RGA) and the European Gaming and Betting Association. Bet365, bwin, Ladbrokes, Betfair, 888, Paddy Power and William Hill are members of the RGA. While suspicious betting activity is likely to occur on websites outside the jurisdiction of the regulated industry in Europe, signs of unsual betting volumes can appear on betting exchanges such as Betfair.
The meeting has been called in the wake of IOC president Jacques Rogge’s statement last year that illegal betting was now as big a threat to the credibility of sport as doping. Rogge argued that the temptation for Olympic athletes to cheat was greater because they were not paid as much as in other sports. He however also admitted that no evidence had been found of such cheating in the last Olympics in Beijing in 2008.
Olympic officials’ move to gain reassurances from the UK industry over betting-related corruption associated with the Olympics comes despite bookmakers consistently reiterating the point that the 2012 Games will attract little betting action from punters compared to this summer’s major betting event, the European Football Championships to be held in Poland and Ukraine. Furthermore, data released late last year by Coventry University’s International Centre for the Business of Sport (CIBS) which analysed 2,089 proven cases of sporting corruption during the last 10 years, showed that doping dwarfed betting-related corruption by a ratio of 35:1, equating to close to 96% of cases compared to just 3% for non-betting related match fixing and 1.5% to the misuse of inside information.
Bet365′s sportsbook is regulated by the UK Gambling Commission. Find out more at Bet365.
