IOC sets up group to monitor illegal gambling in 0lympics

IOC sets up group to monitor illegal gambling in 0lympics
Friday, August 10, 2012


For many years, doping seemed to be among the biggest threats to the Olympic games. However, a new threat appears to be rising. According to Olympic officials, the newest threats to the Olympics are corruption, match-fixing, and illegal betting in Olympics.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge stated the following last year in regards to the issue, We have made doping a top priority, now there is a new danger coming up that almost all countries have been affected by and that is corruption, match-fixing and illegal gambling.

In order to combat this new threat, the IOC has created a monitoring unit that will monitor the games and will work in tandem with both the Metropolitan Police and the UK Gambling Commission. The groups have been working together since July 16th but will start meeting daily starting this weekend.

In regards to the gambling angle, the UK Gambling Commission will receive detailed reports on suspicious looking betting patterns from UK bookmakers that they license. In addition, ISM will monitor the gambling trends both in Europe and Worldwide. ISM is a company on retainer by the IOC.

The IOC will also gather information from the Metropolitan Police who have agreed to bring any information they receive to them. In addition, the IOC will rely on international federations and the competing nations to help provide data they receive.

The UK Gambling Commission's head of regulation Nick Tofiluk are among those that believe that the IOC is overly concerned on illegal gambling with the Olympics. He said that "Our view is that the threat of something happening is very low. There is no specific intelligence that anything is going to happen."

While Tofiluk feels this way, he does see the value in monitoring these trends. He says that, "... the impact of something happening would be tremendously high to the reputation of the Olympics, of the UK and sport in general.

“Because of the impact that any incident would have, we think the risk is sufficiently high for us to put in provisions. But just because there is a risk does not mean something is certain to happen.”

The main concern for Rogge seems to be in the subcontinent and in Asia. This will be the first Olympics where bets will be available on all events, including event losers. As such, this could present some great opportunities for those looking to profit from match fixing.

Ultimately, it will remain to be seen what the IOC does with this information. They have not stated what measures they plan to take with any data but it is possible that if matches are threatened by illegal gambling or match fixing, they may have to postpone events. This is something they hope to avoid with this new monitoring system. In the end, they will probably be happy if the sentiment of those like Tolifuk turn out to be the case and this is just an instance of the IOC being "too careful".

http://www.thisissouthwales.co.uk/IOC-sets-group-monitor-illegal-gambling-0lympics/story-16686619-detail/story.html