Wimbledon match-fixing and betting scam

by Paul Conneally | June 21, 2008 at 09:45 pm

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As Wimbledon gears up the last thing it needed was this story about match fixing. As a sport that perhaps above all others aside from boxing depends on the integrity of two individuals rather than a team effort one can see how vulnerable to match fixing it could be. This is just the start of this story that is bound to run into and over the summer festival of strawberries, cream and sport that is Wimbledon.

Eight matches at Wimbledon have been reported to the tennis authorities on suspicion that their results have been fixed by professional gambling syndicates.

The matches are named in a dossier compiled by leading bookmaking companies, which monitor suspect betting patterns and players thought to be willing to throw games.

Four of the matches are from last year’s men’s singles at Wimbledon and involve foreign players who each lost by three sets.

The dossier identifies sudden spikes in the sums wagered. More than £450m was bet on Wimbledon matches last year through just one British internet site, Betfair. Many suspect matches show huge rises in the money pledged, compared with similar games.

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