ESSA has “serious concerns” over lower level tennis data sales ban
Blanket ban aims to remove incentivised breaches of integrity
Sports betting integrity body ESSA has “serious concerns” over the impact of a total ban on selling data on lower-level tennis matches.
In April, the Tennis Integrity Unit’s Independent Review Panel recommended the implementation of a blanket ban on “the sale of live scoring data, which creates opportunities for breaches of integrity”.
This ban was recommended at the lower levels of the sport, following high profile match-fixing investigations against three players earlier this year.
ESSA Secretary General Khalid Ali said: “We have taken a keen interest in the recent publication of the Interim Report into tennis by the Independent Review Panel. We support many of the recommendations made by the Panel and we wish to work with the sport to address betting related issues.
However, we have serious concerns about a blanket discontinuation of the sale of data for events at the lowest level of tennis and whether that approach is proportionate to the issue and will provide a practical and effective solution.”
The Independent Review Panel was set up by the ATP, WTA, ITF and Grand Slam Board to thoroughly investigate allegations of corruption in the sport and can recommend any regulatory changes to the way the sport is governed to stop corruption from taking place.
In its Q2 2018 integrity report, ESSA revealed it reported 62 separate suspicious betting alerts to various sporting authorities during the second quarter of 2018, with 44 suspicious betting alerts reported to Tennis authorities during the period alone.
A total of eight sports were involved, with a further 12 cases reported in football, although it would not confirm if the cases reported in football were during the recent FIFA World Cup, as the cases were currently ongoing.
In addition, one case was reported in basketball, boxing, eSports, beach volleyball and handball during the period.
ESSA holds positions on high-level betting policy forums at the European Commission, Council of Europe and the IOC. Current ESSA members include: 888sport, Betfred, Betsson, Betway, bet365, Ladbrokes Coral, Paddy Power Betfair, Sky Bet and William Hill.