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Read This Before You Bet on Tennis

By Mark

Now you wouldn't have thought that tennis, the game of the country club elite, strawberries and cream, and mandatory whites on the grass lawns of staid Wimbledon would grow to be the third most popular betting sport in Europe, but at Betfair, one of the world's largest online sports betting exchanges, tennis is now third behind horse racing and soccer. More than $12 billion was bet online in 2005 and now tennis is mired in its own gambling scandal.

Betfair started the current controversy when it voided bets in a relatively obscure match involving world number 4 Nikolay Davydenko in Poland after it noticed irregularities. It then notified the ATP. The ATP, 10 days ago, mandated that players and their entourages notify tennis officials within 48 hours of any information regarding gambling or match fixing. This will give the ATP the ability to act quickly to suspend players when necessary and to act to preserve the integrity of the game. The presence of the rule also give the ATP an extra enforcement tool for those circumstances when information comes to it that players haven't been exactly forthcoming.

It's not exactly shocking that tennis has a gambling problem although I have to admit I had no idea that the volume of bets on tennis had reached that level. The sites I visit from time to time for research purposes don't usually carry lines on tennis so to see it as the third most popular bet in Europe is a bit shocking. That volume makes me think there may be something to all of this after all. Where there is smoke when it comes to gambling there is generally fire, as the bookmakers generally know when something is off before anyone else. That's why most of them have working arrangements, as Betfair does, with most of the leagues and other authorities such as the ATP.

Full post as published by Sports Biz on November 24, 2007 (boomark / email).