World Cup Officials To Use Early Warning System To Fight Online Betting Scams
13th October, 2009
It has now been confirmed that the international federation of association football will again be using their early warning system to make sure that there is legitimate online betting activities during the 2010 World Cup.
A gambling surveillance company put in force the early warning system to monitor online betting activities to check for any suspicious activities. The system has been used during key sports events since 2006 and was most notably used during the Beijing Olympic Games.
The early warning system is now part of a FIFA subsidiary organization and will be used in South Africa to help online bookies identify unusual betting so that they avoid being victims of illegal betting syndicates.
So far during the qualifying stages there has been no illegal betting detected. However the EWS head of competition analysis, Detlev Zenglein hasn’t ruled out the possibility of illegal betting during the actual World Cup tournament.
He commented that just because they haven’t found any evidence thus far, it doesn’t mean that no illegal activity has taken place. He added that although illegal betting syndicates are unlikely to target the more high profile games at the world cup so called ties will need to be closely monitored.
He continued that even thought the EWS has done some good in ensuring fair betting, they still have some way to go in the overall fight against sporting corruption, for example with the fight against anti-doping in which they are still at an early stage. He used an analogy comparing the organization to a 100 metres race, that they have only recently heard the starter’s pistol.
By Faye
