Online Gambling Move Sets Off Alarms
 
July 23, 2009

The online gambling world is very clear about the rules of betting. If they see something that doesn’t look quite right, or they get wind of something involving a bet that is not exactly as it should be, they are usually fairly quick to stop all online gambling on whatever the event is that is in question. This is exactly what happened in tennis this week.
 
The tennis world prides themselves on the fact that they are very stringent with their online gambling reputation as it pertains to the games themselves. They say that they take precautions to ensure that there is no illegal activity, and are usually pretty confident that they are able to keep the two separate. But a first round match between Wayne Odesnik of the United States, currently ranked 109th, and Jurgen Melzer of Austria, currently ranked 30th, is generating a lot of suspicion.
 
Odesnik says that he has no ties with online gambling, but Betfair.com reported that they were seeing an unusual amount of interest in him. Betfair reported that they were seeing about six times the betting on the match that they would normally see, which set off alarms for them. According to the online gambling site, they received about $980,000 in wagers when normally they would only see about $163,000.
 
Odesnik lost to Melzer in the round, but with so many people betting on the match it really seemed like people were aware of a sure thing. The online gambling site reported a similar incident just a few weeks ago which is under investigation by authorities, along with roughly four other matches.

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