Scandals are nothing new to the Olympic games. They have endured boycotts, questions of Soviet bias, and of course doping scandals. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is determined to avoid any competition-fixing scandals, though, and have created a unit tasked with preventing such a thing.
The IOC has established the International Sports Monitoring (ISM) service, based in historically neutral Switzerland. The goal of ISM is to track sports betting patters and look for red flags, report those to the IOC and let an investigation determine whether there is any attempt to fix competitions.
The IOC had previously monitored betting during the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the Vancouver Olympics this year, but the creation of the ISM places a new emphasis on protecting the integrity of the game from corruption related to sports betting. Previously only the Olympic competitions and the Games themselves had their betting activity monitored. The new ISM, though, will be the first to monitor betting for qualifying events as well as the major international events that lead up to the Games.
With recent match-fixing scandals involving cricket and soccer, the IOC is taking no chances regarding corruption of the London Olympic Games in 2012. Unlike the World Cup, the Olympic games are not traditionally popular for sports bettors, but the IOC is determined to stay ahead of the potential problem.
IOC President Jacques Rogge admitted that sports betting is a legitimate practice that, “through the financial benefits it generates, provides huge opportunities to sports organizations.” Even so, he is worried about the threat of betting leading to “the manipulation of competitions.”
For the bet monitoring to work, the gambling sector has to cooperate. International Sports Monitoring has secured agreements with bookmakers across the globe, particularly in Europe, to share any irregular betting patterns they find that are related to any events. Rogge says that “cheating driven by betting is undoubtedly the biggest threat to sport after doping.”
Tags: International Sports Monitoring, Olypmpic betting, sports betting
