Betfair Wimbledon Betting Spikes After Televised Comment

Tennis betting has had their share of scandals over the past couple of years. Match fixing has become somewhat of a problem, which is why Betfair, the British bookmaking giant, immediately responded Tuesday to odd betting patterns on one particular match.

Betfair alerted tennis corruption investigators about a spike in action on the match between 109th ranked Wayne Odesnik and 30th ranked Jurgen Melzer. A television commentator's statement before the match started was the reason for the spike.

After the commentator claimed that Odesnik had a thigh injury. The money then came pouring in to the bookmaker on Melzer, with over six times the normal play for a first round match of this magnitude. Although Betfair reported the odd betting, they did not believe anything fishy was going on.

"It's being reported as potential corruption, but I don't see it that way at all," said spokesman Mark Davies, to the Associated Press, "I doubt there was any wrongdoing."

Bookmakers have been encouraged to report any out of the ordinary betting patterns because of recent history in tennis. Several players have been caught in match fixing schemes, and it has cast a black eye over the sport for the past several years.

"Because of the transparency...we pass that info on to the Tennis Integrity Unit. Then they can make a judgement," said Davies, "But having heard the commentary on the match, I don't suspect that this is going to turn out to be any kind of a corruption story."

June 24, 2009
Posted By Vincent Tapoglia III
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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