Tennis Betting raises "Suspicion" over 73 Matches in 2015

Just recently, the United Nations stated their worry over tennis matches being fixed. Now it appears that these fears may have even more basis because the Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) has 73 reports of matches with “suspicious betting activity.”

At the beginning of this month, two umpires were banned from the sport for life while four others are being investigated for taking bribes, which allegedly came from betting syndicates wanting to manipulate live scores on the International Tennis Federation’s Futures Tour.

The Guardian reports that 16 of the world’s top 50 ranked players have been flagged to the TIU over suspicion of throwing matches. Now, the ATP and WTA tours, tennis’ governing body and the grand slam board have commissioned a review of their anti-corruption processes.

Evidence released by Essa, which notifies European bookmakers whenever irregular betting activity occurs, showed the 73 matches that were reported to the TIU – 24 of which came within the last three months of 2015.

In contrast, football (soccer) had 19 suspicious betting cases reported while greyhound racing, ice hockey and snooker had just one case each. Here’s one excerpt from Essa’s report:

“The start of 2016 has seen a worldwide focus on alleged match-fixing in tennis. The data contained in Essa’s Q1-3 reports has been used to highlight those concerns. The data in our Q4 integrity report reflects previous quarters, and whilst tennis constituted the largest proportion of suspicious betting alerts identified by Essa , it should be noted the vast majority of tennis events are fair.”

The TIU has been actively working with Essa to find the root of the corruption and stop it. “If the analysis suggests suspicious activity, the TIU moves to investigation, which includes interviewing players, taking phones and laptops,” reports TIU.

However, the integrity unit was also quick to point out that mere suspicion of match fixing is not proof of anything.

“An alert can be an indicator of suspicious activity,” explains TIU. “But it is not proof or evidence that corruption has taken place. On its own, betting data is not sufficient to bring forward a successful prosecution; it has to be considered, assessed and verified along with the TIU’s many other sources of intelligence. Statistics of the kind released today by Essa must be considered in that light.”

The match-fixing reports don’t seem to center on any one continent in particular. 19 of the reports came from Asia, 18 from Asia and 14 in North America.

One of the Asian reports centered on Thai doubles player Jatuporn Nalamphun, who was given an 18-month ban for betting on certain matches and not cooperating with the TIU.