Online Casinos Tell Germany They Can Help Prevent Soccer Scandals

Many Germans are of the opinion that the proliferation of online casinos has led to the monstrous soccer betting scandal currently being uncovered, but actually cheating is much more difficult against Internet gambling sites.

An international furor is erupting over the revelations of gambling corruption affecting soccer results across Europe and Asia. German officials are blaming the expansion of Internet gambling for the manipulation of match results, but online casinos are saying they can help prevent corruption, rather than increase it.

The European Sports Security Association, created by online gambling operators in Europe to detect and report unusual betting patterns and suspicious gaming, says online wagering helps remove much of the danger of corruption by its very nature.

"When the German authorities started to investigate the Hoyzer scandal in 2005, they went to the largest operator at the time, bwin, and asked them how much money they lost," ESSA Secretary General Khalid Ali told German news source Deutsche Welle.

Ali says bwin reported no significant losses on the fixed matches, even though bookmakers are the targets of corruption.

"And the reason was that they were online so everything was fully traceable," stated Ali.

He explained that online casino security systems prevent unusually large betting on games deemed less attention worthy, the lower division games whose results have been compromised in the soccer scandal.

"We have suffered in the past due to manipulated results, but we haven't been hurt at all by the current scandal," said a spokesman for Internet sports book Interwetten. "That's because we have a risk management system that can block attempts at cheating at an early stages."

Rather than increasing the possibility of corrupt matches, online casinos are actually cutting off avenues for crooked gamblers, forcing them to bet at land-based books.