Tuesday, 2 February 2016

Off The Radar

                         Descending Into The Depths Of The Dark Pools Of Football Trading

Of the 10 Premier League matches this midweek, 8 are matchfixing events.
Eight!!!!!

Now you might think that Sportradar (who gather 'intelligence' on suspect betting markets), the FA Sport Betting Integrity Forum, Federbet, Early Warning Systems GmbH (who claim to spot evidence of matchfixing), Europol/Interpol and members of the UK mainstream media (some of whom have first hand knowledge of these rigged events) would be disclosing this mass corruption to the fans.

Dream on.

And to understand why...
... read on.
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Firstly, let's take a glance at the bodies allegedly addressing matchfixing and money laundering in world sport.

1. Federbet - set up by bookmakers for bookmakers. Their biggest scoop this season was the detection that Sporting Clube de Portugal versus Skenderbeu in the Europa League (and three other of the Albanian team's games) were fixed. As virtually every Skenderbeu match is corrupted, this hardly adds to the public's knowledge of the vice of matchfixing. This selective disclosure suggests that matchfixing higher up the food chain is only disclosed to Federbet's partners or that Federbet are entirely incompetent - either logic undermines their raison d'être.
ESSA Sports Betting Integrity (sic) are a similarly pointless grouping of European bookmakers working together to enhance market control.

2. The FA's Sport Betting Integrity Forum - the futility of this talking shop is proved by some of the membership. The British Horse Racing Authority (conspicuous money impacts on outcome in UK racing); the England and Wales Cricket Board (matchfixing in English cricket dominated by Dubai/Mumbai mafia); the FA (not fit for purpose as shown in numerous previous posts); the Tennis Integrity Unit (see Djokovic revelations below); 5 bookmakers (most of whom allow insider trading); Association British Bookmakers; Association of Chief Police Officers, Police Scotland and National Crime Agency (none of whom have disclosed any of the huge body of fixed football matches in the Barclay's Premier League, the Skybet Championship or the Ladbrokes Scottish Premier League).
FASBIF makes the FCA look robust!

3. Europol/Interpol - Ronald Noble, former Secretary-General of Interpol, is exposed in Andrew Jennings' book 'The Dirty Game' as, at the very least, a facilitator of the burying of bad matchfixing news relating to FIFA. Additionally, Europol direct any enquiries regarding matchfixing back to the local police authorities, like any Albanian citizen is going to go to Tirana police to report Skenderbeu games!

4. Early Warning Systems - established by that body of colossal integrity FIFA to expose matchfixing, yet somehow have failed to spot the three World Cup matchfixing events disclosed by Jennings and the dozens of events (including 5 at World Cup Finals in Brazil 2014) disclosed by Football is Fixed.

5. Sportradar - claim to reach deep into the underground markets but merely skim the surface of the Dark Pools that dominate matchfixing globally. When Sportradar detect a suspect event, do they go to the media? No fucking chance. In effect, they sell their analyses (sic) back to the sports betting industry so that markets might be made more efficient and mugs might be mugged - the suspect markets aren't suspended but traded aggressively with patsies being unaware that their leisure punt is a certain loser. No improvement in integrity. No support for the punter.
One of Sportradar's marketing slogans is "realise opportunities - everywhere" which says it all really.





Let's take tennis as an example.

On the eve of the ITF Australian Tennis Open in Melbourne last month Novak Djokovic disclosed that he had been offered considerable money to throw a tennis game earlier in his career.
The ITF and other tennis boards quickly moved to state that there had been no suppression of evidence of historical matchfixing in tennis http://www.itftennis.com/media/221271/221271.pdf.

But Australia's anti-doping chief Richard Ings has claimed that when he worked at the ATP tennis organisation, the body buried a report disclosing extensive matchfixing in the sport over a decade ago.

Four Corners, an Australian investigative journalist group, disclosed on ABC website yesterday that more than 40 tennis matches were flagged as matchfixing events in just three months last year http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-01/40-professional-tennis-matches-flagged-for-match-fixing/7127240
Furthermore, 350 tennis professionals are on a blacklist of matchfixers.

One of Sportradar's partners is the ITF.

So when Sportradar detect corruption, one of the following scenarios is played out:

a) Sportradar inform governing body who then take no action or,

b) Sportradar inform bookmakers who trade the information and adjust their internal markets but make no public disclosure or,

c) Sportradar inform both governing bodies and bookmakers and all enjoy privileged inside information at the public's expense with no release of the corruption to the press.

Whichever of these constructs is the reality, Sportradar are exposed as charlatans who are a problematical input to integrity in world sport.

As they scream on their website - ITF and Sportradar: A Unique Partnership.

Additionally, virtually all tennis coaches in the UK have contracts with British territory bookmakers that enables private information regarding player form, injury, psychological state, fitness to be shared for mutual gain.

Yet players themselves and family members/friends have to sign non-disclosure contracts to prevent them from utilising private information in the betting markets!

Top-down insider trading is allowed...
... bottom up trading is banned.



Which is where we come in - we copwatch.

We are trusted as purveyors of integrity which means that we are given highly privileged market information at least two levels deeper than the stratum reached by Sportradar in the Dark Pool trading platforms that dominate global betting markets.

There is also extensive chapeau blanc detection and intercept abilities in our network.


Hence the eight Premier League matches that are matchfixing events this midweek.

We know of only one other British entity that has similar access to these markets.

Yet this deeper access cannot be used as an excuse for the inaction of the bodies detailed above - although they might not witness the specific £### million trades, the market structure means that this information floats to the surface of the public markets where, with bespoke analysis, it is detectable.
Furthermore, many bookmakers operate in both the Dark Pools and in the public markets and are fully aware of the matchfixing.

Think of this when at your Premier League ground of choice tonight and tomorrow evening.

NB: We released our information relating to Dark Pool betting patterns and our other modes of extracting insider trading information 5 hours prior to the Tuesday Premier League kick-off's to engender a response in the market from the matchfixing operations. And a response is exactly what we got! If we had delayed our post to kick off (the original intention), we would not have garnered this extra information.
And the matchfixing that we exposed?
All eight matches were indeed matchfixing events.
These criminalised people are not very bright.

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