International illegal betting

Robertson "as confident as he can be" that London 2012 is safe from illegal betting
By Mike Rowbottom in Lausanne


March 2 - Hugh Robertson, Britain's Minister for Sport and the Olympics, admitted after attending the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) first working meeting on irregular and illegal sport betting here that he had not realised the full scope of the problem.

But he insisted that safeguards already in place will ensure the integrity of the London 2012 Games.

"What struck me about today was the multitude of agencies that have locked onto this," he told insidethegames.

"Whether its Interpol, or the UN, or European institutions.

"I don’t think until today I understood the breadth of the threat.

"And what was encouraging was seeing people brought together to tackle it.

"The internet has completely revolutionised this - it’s so easy to bet in various different ways.

"But we are as confident as we possibly can be that we’ve got the systems in place to combat this in London.

"I think there’s a much bigger issue with this beyond London 2012."

Part of Robertson’s confidence resided in the action that has already been taken in the wake of the Parry report which came out last month.

Former Liverpool chief executive Phil Parry and a panel of sports betting experts passed on to the Government the results of their review of gambling-related corruption in sport, proposing a Sports Betting Integrity Unit which will operate within the Gambling Commission to maximise its investigative powers.

"The Parry report is absolutely where we ought to be," Robertson said.

"What we are doing domestically is absolutely the right thing to do in terms of sports betting intelligence.

"Everyone here is talking about that - the Sports Betting Integrity Unit is already doing that."

Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, said after the four-hour meeting, in which Britain was also represented by Colin Moynihan, chairman of the British Olympic Association, that it would be "a couple of weeks" before the next working party meeting, during which time discussions would take place about whether to establish a new agency along the lines of the one set up a decade ago to deal with doping, the World Anti Doping Authority, or whether to work with and amend existing structures such as the two United Nations conventions already in existence with hundreds of signatories on corruption and organised crime.

Robertson clearly inclines towards the latter school of thought.

"I think we need to understand what can be done within existing mechanisms before we start trying to create new ones," he said.

"If there’s an idea that’s slightly gone backwards over the course of today it’s that everybody thought this was all about WADA Mk II.

"I don’t think as a result of today anybody is yet convinced that that is the answer because of the complexity of this. That’s something the working group will examine.

"The President of the IOC was very clear in saying he wants something done about this.

"We all know it’s a real threat."

Robertson also urged that considerations about reimbursing sports with betting levies should not distract the authorities from the main task.

"It’s important to have real focus, and the problem here is corruption in sport," he said.

"The whole basket of issues that are vaguely associated with it, people trying to advance a fair return argument, this is not about a fair return to sport, it is about stopping sports men and women cheating in competitions.

"And we are most likely to get a worthwhile result if we focus on that and what’s needed to stop that happening.

"And that will need to be done inside sport and things need to be done inside government to tackle illegal betting.

"You can look at this in terms of two big sub-headings.

"The sport bit and the Government bit.

"In the sport bit you’ve got to try and assess the real threat, you’ve got to have proper education and communication programmes, you’ve got to have very clear rules and then you’ve got to have penalties for people who are caught doing it.

"On the Government side you’ve got to have appropriate legislative frameworks, you’ve got to have really good information sharing, and that was something that came through very strongly today, the need to get the sport and betting operators working together.

"This isn’t a sport versus betting thing - and the IOC can directly influence what happens in the sport.

"I think it can have a great advocacy in terms of what Governments do."