Widjaja is a former betting trader and is known to have hacked Singapore Pools about $200,000. He did this by coming up with a conspiracy with his colleague in manipulating football odds. Yesterday he received a jail term of 4 years.

Rocky Widjaja is 26 years and agreed to 13 out of 52 counts of cheating with Thomas Tong Heng Huat who is 32 years for the use of a computer to gain access a programme known as Margin Maker 2 (MM2); this was used to cheat the Singapore Pools.

Toh Yung Cheong who was the judge to the case denied the permanent citizen to Singapore cash-bailout. The case has a pending appeal against ruling. At the same time, the court learnt that in August 2011, the two colleagues had intentions of cheating their employer through the use of the software to control the odds of the “total goals: over/under”. They intended to do this on the different leagues and football matches in international leagues.

This plan would be implemented by either of the man who on the trading rooms in Singapore Pools’ headquarter was on the shift at the time of implementation. The man who would be off shift would place their bet and his conspirator would accept the bet, before they lowered the odds a couple of minutes after.

The actions would be coordinated and a sure win would be guaranteed for them and a sure loss for the Singapore Pools. The tickets that won the bet would be claimed at different pools outlets.

The scheme went on for a long time before being unravelled until January 20^th, 2012. This is when it was realized that Widjaja had gone against the staff regulations through his the bets that he placed in the outlets. The bets were between $12,000 and $38,000 and the winning would be as much as $44,000.

When Ricky’s actions were discovered, he erased his texts and a Microsoft spreadsheet that contained details to the offences. His lawyer made an impassioned plea for the pre-sentence report. She reported that her client had made a full restitution for all the money he took together with Thong’s share. Thong is currently serving a 5year-4months jail term for similar offences.

Sportradar and Europol are now in a joint venture. This partnership is aimed at protecting integrity in sporting in the continent. These two parties penned a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) which acknowledged their collaboration and support to one another. This will also include trading of expertise, information, statistical data and trends that will relate to integrity to sports’ events.

The Europol Deputy Director; Wil Van Gemert pointed out that they need to work hand in hand in order to stop incidences like match fixing. He was grateful of their new collaboration with Sportradar and they plan to create difficulty in match fixtures and game manipulators to continue with their crimes.

CEO to Sportradar Carsten Koerl acknowledged on the efforts by Europol towards discussing and investigating issues that related to match-fixing. He pointed out on operations by Europol like VETO which involves teams of police from 13 European countries that were successful in identifying 425 individuals who were suspected of having 380 matches fixed in 15 countries. With this, it is evident that Europol is committed in getting rid of match fixing.

This move to sign the agreement shows how the two entities are dedicated at making sure that sports betting is safe and no manipulation is happening. Working together will strengthen their mission and will assist them in making more breakthroughs which will bring down those who undermine credibility of sports we are all interested in.

Sportradar grow their portfolio by bringing in a Tennis Channel

Sportradar made announcements that they have expanded their portfolio with a US pay TV tennis channel. The channel has right to telecast the US Open, Roland Garros, Australian open and Wimbledon among many more.

They have a 1-year aggrement were the Tennis Channel brings into action Sportradar Media Service’s XML feed for tennis on their portal. The XML feed brings in a wide array of data like the live scores, statistics and tournaments.

The Tennis Channel Vice President echoed his gratitude to being in business with Sportradar. He added that he hopes their fans will be treated with updated statistics and information.

Match fixing is a worldwide threat to sports and nothing regarding the competition will be in a position to work unless the officials, players and fans are sure of the results. Groups in the industry are coming up with a new system that is designed to assist in alerting in case of any suspicious betting activities that would arise in a match.

The World Lottery Association and European Lotteries launched the Global Lottery Monitoring System (GLMS). Sportradar is powering the system and will make it possible for groups making use of it to make communications and issue alerts on any suspicious matches. The President to European Lotteries said that the EL and WLA have their commitment towards upholding honest betting and integrity around the globe.

This detection of suspicious betting has been a tool which will be used in bringing match fixing to an end before it starts or have betting stopped before a match starts. The system will make void if there is unusual volumes of betting coming in or if betting is proving to go against what the bookie might be expecting.

A recent report by the European Sports Security Association (ESSA) reveals that tennis seems to be the sport that is often associated with betting activities that are suspicious. The ESSA has for a while been monitoring betting activities and submitting alerts; over the first three months of 2015 they made 27 tennis match alerts and 17 of these were said to be suspicious after investigations were carried out. The tennis alerts were more than half of the alerts generated by the organization. Most of the remaining alerts were from soccer; others were from snooker, table tennis and snooker and they had at least one suspicious betting pattern in the quarter.

Comments from the WLA president said that this new GLMS will assist the gaming industry in corporation with the world’s sports magazine. Through this system, the organization will be in a position to work with IOC and FIFA in making sure that all information on irregular betting is addressed.

On 18^th May, 2015, police in Italy made arrests of dozens of lower league footballers and officials of the clubs after a probe into being suspects of betting on matches that were linked to a crime group known as Ndrangheta. Mafia network’s prosecutors of Calabria gave out arrest warrants for the arrests of 50 people from different parts of Italy. 30 more are under investigation in an inquiry labelled Dirty Soccer.

This investigation is focused on matches in this season and has involved clubs in Lega Pro and Serie D; which are the third and fourth tiers of Italian football. This emerges as the latest in a series of betting and other scandals that have been used to demean the reputation of football in Italy. The worst thing is that it involves Italy’s biggest clubs and footballers.

The investigators also brought to light evidence of attempts or actual match fixing which was related to betting in 1980 and 1986. These two incidences are known to have been the main reasons for Paolo Rossi’s ban for three years. This ban was later lowered to two years after an appeal where Rossi resumed playing and he played a major role in taking Italy to the World Cup in 1982.

Another major investigation was carried out in 2006 and it saw Juventus relegated after the investigation revealed the corruption of referees. There was also a new scandal that was performed which focused on betting on minor details in matches and not on the results. This was an investigation done in 2011.

Let’s wait and see what these new investigations on dirty soccer will lead to.

Proper football betting tips

To avoid such incidences in about dirty soccer, you could use safe and legal betting strategies to earn you good returns.

• Have a bet target prior to placing the bet to know how much you will be expecting back
• Learn that betting is not a get rich quick venture
• Set Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed (SMART) bets
• Define your budget and do not go over what you have allocated to your betting
• Learn the different types of bets available in soccer betting and analyze the matches to bet on the one you find fit