In the UK, the Gambling Commission has published a policy position paper setting out its views and proposed actions to ensure the integrity of sportsbetting.
Available at GamblingCommission.gov.uk, the position paper follows a report published in October of 2007 that laid out the Commission’s approach to certifying integrity in sportsbetting.
The Commission also consulted on an issues paper on in-running betting and revealed that it would not be singling out in-running betting for any special treatment.
“The results of the Commission’s specific consultation on issues raised by in–running betting noted that, while in-running betting theoretically gave more scope for event rigging or use of inside information, the evidence had not been provided to indicate that in practice there has been any significant increase,” stated the Commission.
“As the main ways of deterring or combating lack of integrity are the same for in-running and ante-post betting, the Commission proposes to deal with in-running betting risks to integrity as part of its wider integrity programme.”
In its position paper, the Commission called for more cooperation between sports governing bodies and the betting industry in order to help both to better understand and cooperate with each other. The regulator revealed that it had encouraged the Association of British Bookmakers to hold a seminar for sports bodies to meet and further their understanding of the betting industry. The watchdog described the ‘workstream on betting integrity’ as one of its ‘business plan priorities’ for the upcoming year and revealed that a ‘dedicated cross-functional betting integrity team’ would undertake this work before publishing a ‘stock take of the progress made in relation to promoting integrity in betting’ in a year.
“While we are not persuaded that there is a sufficient case for restricting types of bets or dictating sporting bodies’ rules in relation to betting at this time, we plan to monitor closely the effectiveness of the various actions being taken by the Commission, the industry and sporting bodies and will consider further regulatory measures if they appear warranted,” stated the Commission.
Abstract from www.igamingbusiness.com
