Scott Ferguson, a wagering industry consultant, was once the ‘head of education’ at Betfair , the world’s largest internet betting exchange.
Now he runs the website Sports is Made for Betting .
The Hindu caught up with him in light of the match-fixing controversy which has rocked the tennis world.
Excerpts:
In your experience, is there anything you have seen, Nikolay Davydenko excepted, that suggests fixing could have infiltrated the top of tennis?
The top? No. There will be the odd match in Round-1 of a ’Slam, but generally these events involve early round matches at the lower Tour events, or further below. And therein lies one of the problems. If it’s not blatantly obvious to the person on the street, then there’s a severe danger of it being written off as a gamblers’ problem or a myth.
But there are undoubtedly players profiting from manipulating the score-line.
Those in the Tennis Integrity Unit say transparency is impossible because it will compromise their working. Is there any way they can be seen to be doing more?
It’s 2016! That’s a lame excuse. They have to be seen to be doing something, even if it’s by making generic statements.
“In January, 15 matches were submitted for investigation, of which we found enough evidence to follow up on 10 matches.” Making public statements only when they have sanctioned some player nobody has ever heard of just doesn’t cut it. Perception is everything.
Should the sport be responsible for investigating itself? Surely there is an incentive for them to not find corruption, which potentially hurts commercial revenue from sponsorship and broadcast rights.
Anti-doping is taken away from the sports because of governance risks, why should match-fixing be any different?
Is the TIU up to speed in using data and analytics? Is investment in this area the key to get its investigative abilities to the next level?
It’s hard to tell from the ‘cone of silence’ but with the resources they have made public, it’s hard to believe they are.
Again, it’s 2016; it’s the era of big data. They should be using data models to chart the course of match (betting odds), mining the betting data provided to them by betting companies and developing analytics to understand the traits of individual players in different situations.
Two or five matches on their own do not prove anything. Build up a sample of 50 matches per player per year, and you can start making reasonable assumptions. The player tracking data these days is getting very sophisticated. Why not use it to protect the sport too?
And, supposing they do it, can the seemingly difficult gap between suspicious betting patterns and legally permissible be bridged?
Prosecuting a player on the international circuit can be very difficult when you have players from different nations at a tournament in another, contacted by criminals based in other countries, with different laws in each relating to accessing phone records and financial history and to how seriously they treat sporting corruption.
But the TIU is not trying these players in a criminal court. The burden of proof is significantly lower. Even if they can’t (yet) convict, they can make it known to these players they are being watched closely.
(To be concluded)
