Online Casinos Leaving UK Has Sports Leagues Worried
British sports leagues have asked the government to address concerns caused by the probable movement of most major online casinos and Internet sports books to Gibralter and other areas outside the UK. The sports bodies are worried that new operating bases mean that such books as William Hill and Ladbrokes will no longer be under UK regulations, which require the online gaming sites to share information and disclose suspicious betting patterns.Leagues say the Gambling Act is an important part of preventing match-fixing and gambling corruption. If bookmakers move beyond the reach of regulators, sports officials fear their games will be vulnerable.
Hill, Ladbrokes and other UK online casino operators are looking to escape onerous UK taxes, which cost them as much as ten times what offshore operations pay. The issue of relating sports betting information is a side effect of the need to find an equitable business location.
The English Football Association says it was able to gather the needed information to suspend four players for a year thanks to cooperative measures with Internet gambling operators based in the UK. It says offshore operators have been far less open.
But gaming experts point to the international cooperation given tennis in its fight against gaming corruption, and say it is in the sports books' best interest to work with sports associations to prevent fixed games.
"The main target of fixing is the book, who stands to take a loss if criminals bet heavily on a match that's fixed," says longtime gambler Tom O'Shannon. "And the book wants clean games, because players won't bet if they suspect results are not honest."
