Betfair on the Front Foot Over Sport Gambling Cheats
Betfair on the front foot over sport gambling cheats
21 August 2011
The leader of the worldwide Olympic movement, Jacques Rogge, has called match-fixing and corruption as big a risk to sporting integrity as doping.
Unfortunately, sporting scandal and attempted jagged wagering coups have all frequently gone together, as current football match-fixing events in Finland and South Korea have actually shown.
Those occasions, like last year's furore surrounding 3 Pakistan cricketers - consequently given bans - and the bowling of "no balls" versus England at Lords, were linked to illegal betting rings.
But for legitimate wagering firms, whether conventional High Street outlets or more recent online betting organisations, these events all tend to be lumped together in the general public's mind under the one heading of "betting".
"Much of what we have seen has actually been from the illegal Asian markets - there is a big distinction in between them and ourselves," says a senior investigator at online gaming firm Betfair.
"But it is everything about understandings, and people just see the headlines about gambling without looking deeper."
It is to avoid such ruined associations with crooked gaming rings that companies such as Betfair go to terrific lengths to keep an eye on the wagering patterns on its website.
'Prevent, identify, examine'
The firm is the world's major betting exchange - a set-up that enables gamblers to bank on sporting occasions at odds set by other bettors.
Betfair makes its cash by taking a commission from winning bets.
The company's head office overlooks the River Thames at Hammersmith, west London, and homes Betfair's corporate, technical, marketing, and user-experience teams.
Betfair on the front foot over sport gambling cheats
21 August 2011
The leader of the worldwide Olympic movement, Jacques Rogge, has called match-fixing and corruption as big a risk to sporting integrity as doping.
Unfortunately, sporting scandal and attempted jagged wagering coups have all frequently gone together, as current football match-fixing events in Finland and South Korea have actually shown.
Those occasions, like last year's furore surrounding 3 Pakistan cricketers - consequently given bans - and the bowling of "no balls" versus England at Lords, were linked to illegal betting rings.
But for legitimate wagering firms, whether conventional High Street outlets or more recent online betting organisations, these events all tend to be lumped together in the general public's mind under the one heading of "betting".
"Much of what we have seen has actually been from the illegal Asian markets - there is a big distinction in between them and ourselves," says a senior investigator at online gaming firm Betfair.
"But it is everything about understandings, and people just see the headlines about gambling without looking deeper."
It is to avoid such ruined associations with crooked gaming rings that companies such as Betfair go to terrific lengths to keep an eye on the wagering patterns on its website.
'Prevent, identify, examine'
The firm is the world's major betting exchange - a set-up that enables gamblers to bank on sporting occasions at odds set by other bettors.
Betfair makes its cash by taking a commission from winning bets.
The company's head office overlooks the River Thames at Hammersmith, west London, and homes Betfair's corporate, technical, marketing, and user-experience teams.