UK Match Fixing Cheats Could Face 10-Years in Prison

UK Match Fixing Cheats Could Face 10-Years in Prison

UK match fixing cheats could face 10-years in prison after a further amendment to the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill is presented to the House of Lords, and FOBT study is being carried out without access to a FOBT.

An amendment to the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill could see jail sentences for match fixing extended to 10-years in prison if passed successfully through the House of Lords.

UK Match Fixing Cheats Could Face 10-Years in PrisonThe amendment is being motioned by the former sports minister, and British Olympic Association Chairman, Lord Moynihan, who got together with Britain’s Sports Betting Group to draw up the proposals.

If approved, the proposed changes will alter the current, ‘cheating at gambling: amendments to section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005,’ and the most controversial change is the one that substitutes the ‘two years’ jail term to a ‘ten year’ jail term.

The proposed changes come at a time when the integrity of British sport is being questioned globally, after a series of high profile match fixing scams that have affected both non league and football league matches in the UK; in addition to a number of high profile cases of football stars breaching Football Association (FA) betting regulations.

Reports in The Telegraph indicate that executives from most of the major sporting factions in the UK are expected to provide some positive action to ministers in a bid to combat the people who seem intent on bringing the integrity of British sport to its knees.

The footballers arrested in the wake of those aforementioned scandals have been charged by the National Crime Agency (NCA) with common law offences of conspiracy to fraud, which in itself carries a 10-year jail sentence.

The Professional Footballers Association (PFA) believes that its members are more aware of these problems than ever before, after revealing the results of a study of 120 of its members that showed 93% understood the FA’s rules on betting, and 82% were aware of its rules on inside information. These figures are up 60% and 40% on a 2010 study that canvassed opinion of 300 players.

The PFA stated that credit must go to the Professional Players Federation for their sterling work in ensuring that British sportsmen and women were the best educated in the world when it came to the fine margins between gambling and sports entertainment – nothing to do with the fact that the recent scandals garnered more tabloid coverage than a Miley Cyrus twerk, and instagram snaps of Kim Kardashian’s rather fantastic derriere?

Wot No Fixed Odds Betting Terminal?

If you have been paying due attention to our coverage of the Fixed Odds Betting Terminal (FOBT) scandal in the UK, then you will be well aware that government ministers are waiting for a crucial report from the Responsible Gambling Trust (RGT) before cracking any whips in the general direction of the machines that create more terror than that scary leader dude from the Daleks.

Fortunately, for those government officials, Adrian Parkinson, from the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, has stepped in to have a word in the shell of the Culture Minister Helen Grant after he learned that the December research project went ahead without any ‘real time’ examination of the FOBT during its every day life.

Speaking to The Guardian Parkinson said: “The request I made was born out of disbelief that no valid research using an actual live terminal and data had ever been commissioned. They know that allowing truly independent academics a live terminal with access to data to study player behavior will reveal the extent of the problem with these machines and they are determined to prevent it.

“I used my contacts in the industry to try to facilitate this research. Now Helen Grant is saying she will make it happen but I don’t think she fully comprehends the resistance she will meet.

“All those at the RGT and the bookmaking executives who control it are complicit in preventing truly independent research. Without it we will never get to the bottom of the problem with FOBTs.”

The word has been heard and the Culture Minister has told the CEO’s of five of the biggest bookmakers in Britain to stop messing about and to provide the RGT with access to a FOBT as it goes through it’s dastardly deeds.

A spokesperson for the Association of British Bookmakers denied the industry had refused access to machines, adding: “The industry believes there should be a coordinated approach to machines research.”

The drama rolls on.

Exterrminate…shudder