High level athletes are not allowed to bet online. Indeed, since the liberalization of online sports betting, the various leagues and federations have been hunting down match-fixing. To prevent players from being tempted, the rules prohibit them and their relatives from betting on matches either online or at bookmakers. One may ask why such a ban and mention famous sportsmen who have already been caught by the patrol.

Why ban sportsmen from betting online?

Professional sports are always walking on a tightrope when it comes to ethics. The lure of money often causes it to trample on ethics. When online betting became popular, the professional sports world saw potential sponsors and a tool to attract a new audience. No one really questioned whether it was ethical to have a commercial relationship with a third party that offered odds on the games in which the team and the player were participating. Soccer is the king in this hypocrisy. On the other hand, the federations and authorities fear that the championships are distorted by match-fixing. It is enough to go to an average player of an average team and offer him to step down or score against his own team and bet a large sum of dirty money to get it back in clean money with a certain profit. This process is not new and the mafia did not wait for online bookmakers to fix matches. Boxing has been the place for this kind of activity for a long time. Recently, tennis and soccer matches have been the object of these scams. With online sports betting, the fear that sportsmen themselves are betting on their defeats has been confirmed by scandalous cases.

Handball: the Cenon - Montpellier affair, a textbook case

It is easy to point to the world of soccer, but the biggest case in France has affected handball with international stars. Mladen Bojinović, Dragan Gajić, Luka and Nikola Karabatic, Samuel Honrubia, Primož Prošt, Mickaël Robin and Issam Tej bet on a defeat at halftime of their team against Cenon. The players and their relatives bet large sums, enough for the, as they are called in Italy bookmaker non AAMS, to detect an unusual amount of bets on this match. Indeed, a handball match does not exceed 5000 euros on the FDJ website. On this match, 80,000 euros were bet. The convictions have fallen with sentences ranging from three months to four months of suspension and 100 000 euros fine. The Federation did not sanction the sportsmen and women, and some of them pointed out that international players of world fame had been caught red-handed. Depending on whether you are powerful or miserable, court judgments will make you white or black.

Tennis particularly affected

While scandals involving players caught with their hands in the cookie jar are rare, the International Tennis Federation has had to clean up its act. It is important to know that tennis is not only the Grand Slam or ATP 1000 tournaments, but also second zone tournaments where lesser known players have a small career with incomes around 2500 euros per month. It is in these events that many matches have been rigged and the testimonies of the players are frightening. They are harassed, either face to face or on social networks. Scammers offer them to let them play a match for 2000 or 3000 euros and thus double their monthly income. While tennis players have the same ban as other professionals, the online gambling regulatory authorities have simply banned betting on tournaments below the ATP 500, while some of them, deemed dubious, have also been banned.

Soccer players caught red-handed

There are many ways to rig a bet. Daniel Sturridge was convicted of leaking information about a transfer. What does this have to do with sports betting? In England, the types of betting are much more numerous than in France and it is possible to bet on transfers. We could talk about insider trading if we were in the financial world. He was sentenced to four months suspension and a fine of £150,000. Joy Barton, the former OM player, was caught in England for betting for 10 years! We know the finesse of Barton and his crime was not hidden since he was openly playing on an online bookmaker with his real name! He would have played on this account more than 15,000 euros.

The list is endless and given the attraction of young people for online sports betting and that they sponsor many stars and teams, we may see more and more sanctions.