Are Pro Tennis Players Being Paid to Throw Games at Wimbledon?

Entertainment & Sports Law

Are Pro Tennis Players Being Paid to Throw Games at Wimbledon?

Posted Jun 23, 2008, 10:34 am CDT
By Martha Neil

As the annual Wimbledon professional tennis championships begin today in England, growing doubt is being cast on the integrity of the international sport by investigations of alleged match-throwing, there and elsewhere. Potential betting profits can far exceed the prizes for winning, so illegal gambling syndicates reportedly can afford to bribe players and still make money.

Four men's singles games at Wimbledon last year are listing in a dossier compiled by bookmakers of 140 professional tennis games worldwide in which gambling statistics suggest that matches may have been intentionally lost by the players, reports the London Times. Meanwhile, a report last month by former police officers retained to investigate the situation by organizations in charge of professional tennis found that “criminal elements” were indeed seeking to “corrupt” players and officials, according to the newspaper.

In compiling their dossier, which they originally used to flag suspicious betting patterns, the bookmakers focused on revenue from gambling on matches at tennis tournaments throughout the world. “If you look at a tournament, you might see one match for £23,000" in revenue, "one for £27,000, one for £36,000 and one for £4.5m," an unnamed source tells the newspaper, referring to amounts of money in British pounds. "It doesn’t take a genius to work out that something is going on in the last one.”

In a written statement last month after the former police officers presented their report, the ATP, one of the sport's governing bodies, said that "professional tennis is neither systematically nor institutionally corrupt."

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