With sports bodies, regulators and law enforcement all focusing on recent football scandals in Europe, an Internet betting company executive stepped forward this week to assure that Internet operators are one of the safest bets around.
Interwetten.com executive Michael Summer told the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle that the corruption and match-fixing scandals sweeping soccer were unlikely to earn illegal profits using Internet gambling sites due to the sophisticated tracking software in use that is capable of picking up on suspicious betting patterns.
Summer said that would-be fixers are unable to generate wagers large enough to profit from their schemes, and that technology at online gaming sites significantly reduces the possibility of match corruption.
“All of our customers are identifiable and can’t get away with using pseudonyms and false identities more than once or twice,” Summer said. “That makes Internet gaming operations far more secure than traditional betting shops.”
Proposition bets and lower division play are especially scrutinised, Summers revealed, as are regions where corruption is most often encountered….and limits on both odds and wager amounts curtail the use of these avenues to scam bookmakers.
Deutsche Welle reported that online casinos regulated in Europe claim the [corruption] problem lies with illegal and unregulated gambling operators in Asia, noting that organised crime is frequently active behind the scenes.