Fixed Football matches. How will this affect Bookmakers online!

[premiergaming]

A Champions League tie played in England is one of 380 matches across Europe investigators say was fixed. However, European police did not reveal the identity of the match they believe was corrupt in England.

Speaking in The Hague, Europol said that they had uncovered an organised crime syndicate based in Asia that was co-ordinating the operation, with around425 match officials, club officials, players and criminals under suspicion.

Europol, which has been investigating for 18 months, said suspected matches included World Cup and European Championship qualifiers, two Champions League ties and "several top football matches in European leagues".

They said that criminals put €16m on rigged matches and made €8m in profits. Payments of €2m are thought to have been paid to those involved, while investigators said that the biggest payment to an individual was €140,000.

Europol believes a crime syndicate based in Asia was liaising with criminal networks throughout Europe. It believes match-fixing has taken place in 15 countries and 50 people have so far been arrested. Officials said they feared this was the "tip of the iceberg".

"This is the work of a suspected organised crime syndicate based in Asia and operated with criminal networks around Europe," Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol, said.

"It is clear to us this is the biggest-ever investigation into suspected match-fixing in Europe. It has yielded major results which we think have uncovered a big problem for the integrity of football in Europe. We have uncovered an extensive criminal network."

Wainwright would not reveal the identity of the Champions League match staged in the UK under suspicion due to "ongoing judicial proceedings" but he did confirm it had taken place in the last three to four years and admitted it was not a country under particular scrutiny.

He added: "The focus has been on other countries, not the United Kingdom. However we were surprised by the scale generally of the criminal enterprise and just how widespread it was.

"It would be naive and complacent of those in the UK to think such a criminal conspiracy does not involve the English game and all the football in Europe."

A Uefa spokesman said: "We will be liaising with Europol in relation to any reports of match fixing in European competition."

What the hell is this world coming to!

 

[Simmo!]

I remember this happened big time in Italy a couple of years ago and a lot of clubs were fined, relegated and docked points, people sacked etc but ultimately nothing much the bookies could do. Juve were the biggest casualties I think.

There was also a scam involving Asians sending people to EPL games when Bet In Play first started. Because EPL games were screened in Asia with a short delay, they were able to get ppl to text stuff through and scam the bookies. For a while anyway.

 

[Simmo!]

Good follow-up article here:

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Goes into the hows and whys a bit.

 

[GOCC]

When spread betting and Sky Sports took off, the spreads did a bet.

Time of First Throw In. Quite a volatile market.

The bet was in seconds and usually was around 70-84 something like that.

This one match on TV Man Utd V West Ham. West Ham won the toss and the spreads phones were on fire with people trying to SELL the time of the first throw in. We are not talking £2 a unit but, £100s

So West Ham have the kick off, a player passes it to John Hartson who then boots the ball straight out of play.

He and a few others in the team had a wry smile and it was discovered that the Spread firms had lost millions on that one kick.

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[vinylweatherman]

I remember this happened big time in Italy a couple of years ago and a lot of clubs were fined, relegated and docked points, people sacked etc but ultimately nothing much the bookies could do. Juve were the biggest casualties I think.

There was also a scam involving Asians sending people to EPL games when Bet In Play first started. Because EPL games were screened in Asia with a short delay, they were able to get ppl to text stuff through and scam the bookies. For a while anyway.

It should have been obvious that this opened the door to such a scam, and should not have been done. I can't see why any delay would be long enough to give the scammers enough time to send and receive a text, and place the bet.

 

[chuchu59]

In Asia big bets are made on handicap betting ie where the favoured team is placed at a handicap of say 0.5 gols up to 3-5 goals. If a team, say Manchester United plays against a much lesser team and wins 1-0 whilst under a handicap of 1.5 goals, the team wins the match but the punter backing the team on the handicap loses. Punters bet in huge bundles on the handicap , sometimes betting millions on a single match so a favoured team can win a match whilst making favourite backers lose. This, I believe, the reason why some heavily favoured teams win by very small margins.

 

[GrandMaster]

It should have been obvious that this opened the door to such a scam, and should not have been done. I can't see why any delay would be long enough to give the scammers enough time to send and receive a text, and place the bet.

I think the delay was maybe half a minute or a minute, but long enough to place an online bet, especially if you have an automated system for doing it. This is, of course, quite a different issue from match fixing.

 

[vinylweatherman]

I think the delay was maybe half a minute or a minute, but long enough to place an online bet, especially if you have an automated system for doing it. This is, of course, quite a different issue from match fixing.

Looks like an oversight. They didn't think this was long enough to permit a scam, but someone figured out a way to do it. It seems odd that the mobile phone network can outpace a live broadcast, but it depends on the route used. Broadcasts tend to get bounced by satellite, so a few seconds delay is inevitable, but a whole minute?