When there are suspicious betting patterns on tennis matches, who looks out for the bettors interests?<\/b><\/p>\n
In May, the ATP announced the completion of its \u201cEnvironmental Review of Integrity in Professional Tennis.\u201d In other words, is there match fixing going on in professional tennis or isn\u2019t there?<\/p>\n
The answer is: yes and no.<\/p>\n
First of all, the co-authors, Ben Gunn<\/b> and Jeff Rees<\/b>, former police officers who specialize in anti-corruption programs in sports, have found \u201cno evidence of any \u2018Mafia\u2019 involvement\u201d in gambling. However, they don\u2019t doubt that \u201ccriminal elements\u201d might be involved in corrupting players and officials and those criminal elements might include \u201corganized criminal gangs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report also says that a \u201cnumber of [Betfair.com] account holders are successfully laying higher ranked players to lose\/backing lesser ranked players to win\u201d and it appears that those bettors used inside information to make those bets. If you remember, this is what put this whole \u201cintegrity\u201d movement in motion: there were suspicious betting patterns on a match between Nikolay Davydenko<\/b> and Martin Vassallo-Arguello<\/b> in Sopot last August. Some Betfair users laid a whole lot of money on Vassallo-Arguello, who was ranked much lower than Davydenko, and made him the favorite before the match had begun. And Vassallo-Arguello remained the favorite even after Davydenko won the first set. Davydenko retired in the third set and Betfair made the unprecedented move of voiding all bets.<\/p>\n
The report then talks about tanking tennis matches (not trying hard enough), unauthorized use of credentials to get access to the players\u2019 locker room, and abusive behavior towards players by coaches and \u201cother related persons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite those problems, the co-authors conclude that \u201cprofessional tennis is not institutionally or systematically corrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t have any problem with these conclusions though I\u2019m not exactly sure that there\u2019s much difference between \u201corganized criminal gangs\u201d and \u201cMafia.\u201d I suppose it\u2019s a matter of scale. A small time organization doesn\u2019t qualify for the term Mafia. Or maybe tennis is just sensitive to the term Mafia ever since the Russian Mafia was attached to the Davydenko case because the bettors laying down the big money came from Russia.<\/p>\n
But I am concerned about something at the moment. There have been a suspicious betting patterns since the Davydenko\/Vassallo-Arguello match and yet Betfair did not void the bets. Professional tennis is watching out for itself by churning out an environmental integrity report and creating an integrity unit, but who’s protecting the bettors?<\/p>\n
On April 14, Oscar Hernandez<\/b> played Juan-Pablo Brzezicki<\/b> in an ATP match in Houston. Brzezicki won the first set and was up 2-0 in the second set and yet his odds of winning the match on Betfair had dropped since the beginning of the match while Hernandez\u2019 odds of winning the match had increased. Hernandez finally did win the match in three sets. Betfair users contacted Betfair to alert them to the suspicious betting pattern on this match but Betfair settled all bets very quickly after the match ended.<\/p>\n
On May 21st, Teimuraz Gabashvili<\/b> played Blaz Kavcic<\/b> in Poertschach. Even though Gabashvili was ranked number 125 at the time and Kavcic was ranked number 357, Gabashvili\u2019s odds of winning the match dropped after he won the first set and they continued to drop after he won the first game of the second set at love. Gabashvili ended up losing the match to Kavcic in three sets.<\/p>\n