Betfair Commits to Helping IOC Combat Illegal Olympic Gambling

One of the largest concerns for the upcoming 2012 Summer Olympics in London is the possibility of gambling rings attempting to fix the results of events. Now, gambling giant Betfair has signed on to keep Olympic officials abreast of any strange or unusual betting patterns, which they hope will help keep the integrity of the Olympics intact.

"The interests of sports governing bodies, like the IOC, and Betfair are completely aligned in wanting to ensure consumers can bet on sporting events in a transparent and secure manner," said Martin Cruddace, the chief legal and regulatory affairs officer at Betfair.

Betfair signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Olympic Committee in order to lay out exactly what they were willing to do to help the IOC combat potential event fixing. According to the agreement, Betfair will share data on transactions and the customers making those wagers should any suspicious activity occur. Betfair already monitors all wagers made on their site in order to detect suspicious betting patterns.

The issue of gambling impacting sporting events was thrown into sharp focus last year, when two Pakistani cricket players were sentenced to jail after being found guilty of fixing part of a test match with England in exchange for bribes.

In addition, recent years have seen allegations made in the world of tennis, particularly in regards to "in play" betting. While these incidents may have had more to do with certain individuals being privy to inside information about injuries than actual match fixing, the possibility of matches that could question the integrity of the sport has been taken extremely seriously.

The potential for gambling to influence sporting events is not a new issue. In American sports, major betting scandals go back to 1919, when several Chicago White Sox players took bribes in exchange for fixing the World Series that year. The so-called Black Sox Scandal led to harsh penalties for any player or coach caught gambling on the sport of baseball, with all such individuals becoming subject to lifetime bans. The ramifications of this decision are still felt today; one of baseball's greatest living players, Pete Rose, is unable to work in baseball due to having gambled on games while serving as a manager.