Betfair to investigate Davydenko v Vassello Arguello match

[rcgills]

Top seed Davydenko pulls out in third set in Poland
Drift in pre-match odds prompts investigation

Matt Scott
Friday August 3, 2007
The Guardian


Betfair yesterday refused to settle its wagers after the top seed, Nikolay Davydenko, retired following irregular betting patterns on his tennis match at the Poland Open in Sopot. After winning his first set against the Argentinian Martin Vassallo Arguello 6-2, the Russian Davydenko lost the second 6-3 before withdrawing from the match with his opponent leading 2-1 in the third set. The story of the match, coupled with the apparently unusual betting, prompted Betfair's market-integrity investigators to launch an investigation into the match. Davydenko and Arguello were unavailable for comment last night.

One punter who was following the match yesterday reported that, despite being the tournament favourite and No4 in the current ATP Tour rankings, Davydenko's pre-match odds drifted to 2.3, equivalent to an 11-8 against although he was set to face a player who stands 87th in the tour rankings. "Despite Davydenko winning the first set 6-2, Vassallo, an inferior player, was still favourite to win on the in-play Betfair market," said the punter.

When the match was suspended, Betfair was showing that $7,310,429 (£3,590,595 ) of bets had been placed and accepted on its site; this compared with approximately $3m during another second-round match at the same tournament, involving Steve Darcis and Tommy Robredo.
The online bookmaker is set to inform the ATP tour of its concerns over the match under the terms of its memorandum of understanding with the organisation, which has been in place since 2003.
It said in a statement: "Betfair has suspended settlement of the match-odds market on this afternoon's second-round match of the ATP Orange Prokom Open in Poland between Martin Arguello and Nikolay Davydenko, pending consultation with relevant regulatory authorities. Betfair has had a memorandum of understanding with the ATP since 2003 and will use it to exchange information should it become necessary."
A spokesman for the tour explained that it holds similar information-exchange agreements with other UK and European bookmakers. "The ATP takes issues surrounding gambling extremely seriously," said a spokesman. "We are committed to ensuring our sport remains corruption free and have strict rules in place governing this area.
"It would be inappropriate for us to comment further on any individual match or on the status of any potential investigation until such time as the process has been completed."
Betfair would not disclose how many times it had previously invoked its memorandum with the ATP tour, stating that such instances are never made public in any sport. However, it is now expected to broaden its investigation into other recent matches about which suspicions of impropriety have been raised. "We look at all matches all the time," said a spokesman for Betfair. "We have an integrity and fraud team of more than 40 people."
There will be particular attention paid to the concerns of punters on the Betfair site's tennis forum, one of whom told the Guardian: "It has become increasingly obvious recently that there are a significant number of 'fixed' tennis matches being played. It is obvious to anyone with some experience of the normal Betfair market behaviour and the appropriate odds for a tennis match that certain low-level ATP matches are being fixed, with corresponding irrational market patterns." Betfair confirmed it would act on any such comments or debate on its forum. "We're all about transparency," added the spokesman. "You can't miss what is said on our forum, which is there for all to see."

Betfair calls off all wagers on $7m tennis tie | Tennis | Guardian Unlimited Sport

[Wittmann 44]

Thanks for posting this RC but IMO this isn’t the worst of them recently. Volandri had been involved in at least two has have Economides and Vanek. A number of those were flagged well in advance here. Davydenko will claim that he had an injury , word leaked out and a few shrewdies (n o doubt many in his camp) got on which promoted a snowball effect. It will be very difficult to prove anything. The most famous “fix” of all time between Kalefnikov and Vicente about 10 years ago was the subject of a massive investigation yielding absolutely nothing. Davydenko is too big to be tackled. The only player ever censured for non trying remains the small fry Georgian Labadze.
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You’re asking for trouble betting on Davydenko in all but Masters and Slams. You’d also be better of avoiding Volandri outside ffice:smarttags" />Italy and lots of the small fry Argentines are extremely suspect as well. Vanek don’t touch with your boss’s money.

Id love to see some action from this but my guess is that Betfair will pay up.

Betfair incidentally closed a number of threads about the match both before and after the game which makes their comments about “transparency” pretty pathetic.

[rcgills]

Yes, I know Davydenko's not the only one raising suspicions. Been stung myself on a couple of the suspect games recently, one with Volandri (who I'll never back again, grand slam or otherwise) and Economides.

As you say though, it's very difficult to prove anything. And of course that may be because there is absolutely no wrongdoing whatsoever (he says so as not to land TDP with a lawsuit ).

[Martens]

fixing in tennis is happening frequently, a player decides to play against his self so what?? hits the ball on the net all time, so whats the problem? nobody can catch him, there is a group of people next to him, placing large amount of money in various bookies or exhcange, and a "strange" result appears with tons of money in favour of the player and his group, is mistake to think that only 'unknown" players do this business, i have the excactly opposite idea, what money to get in a small tournament??? even if you win it, the money is peanuts, but if you fix result,money should be enormus, i dont trust any player as "saint" or crusador, thats my view anyway

[rcgills]

Betfair have decided to void all bets on the match.

[rcgills]

This is getting strange now. Vassallo Arguello leads 6-2 3-1 against Montanes, and is still available at 1.98 Surely he couldn't be stupid enough to be involved in anything dodgy with all the fuss over yesterday.

Actually, he's just held serve again for 4-1, and his price has now dropped to 1.48.

That's me well and truly confused

[rcgills]

Vassallo Arguello promptly loses 5 games in a row to lose the 2nd set 6-4. Montanes down to 1.13 on Betfair.

Maybe there's a perfectly innocent explanation for all this. I find it hard to believe anyone could be stupid enough to fix a match given the attention that's already on this tournament after the last round. All looks very suspicious though

[pelatis]

When big fish play on small ponds you see what happens.

[experte007]

Originally Posted by pelatis

When big fish play on small ponds you see what happens.

Well put! That's exactly why those "strange betting patterns" are no surprise to me at all. Compare the difference in prize money between quarter finals and semis in Tennis with the volume on the Davydenko match or any other match that week and then think again.

[Wittmann 44]

FROM ON THE PUNT



The match-fixing issue in tennis has finally come to a head. Greed was always going to bring about the downfall of those involved. The sheer audacity and volume of money traded on Thursday's match between Davydenko and Vassallo-Arguello was mind-boggling. I congratulate betting exchange Betfair for voiding all bets on this match - but it should never have been turned in-play - the betting pattern was highly suspicious before a ball was struck.

The ATP have swept the match-fixing issue under the carpet for far too long. An ATP representative even spoke to OnThePunt at one stage requesting information. It was clear however that this was an issue they did not want to deal with. But it wasn't going to go away. Acquiring hard evidence against those responsible is no easy task, but the first thing the ATP had to understand was how big the issue had become. They needed to get police involved in several countries.

Suspicious betting patterns emerge on tennis matches for a variety of reasons. Players might be in need of some rest and find easy appearance money too hard to knock back, some might have traveled, arrived late and unprepared at a tournament, or even have a legitimate injury that has had treatment on-site. All these factors can cause a market to swing. But it's important to distinguish between these matches and matches that are blatantly fixed. These are matches where there can only be one result. Two players know exactly what is going to happen.

Nikolay Davydenko has been involved in match-fixing before. He has somehow got away with it over the last few years, often conveniently blaming a dodgy wrist on his suspect retirements. But anyone who witnessed Thursday's match with Vassallo with the betting patterns in mind would have come to just one conclusion - the match was a blatant fix. He made shocking attempts at concealing deliberate errors and his feigning of a foot injury after winning the first set (thus giving those involved more opportunity to bet) was laughable. Chair umpire Mohamed Lahyani must have known what was going on.

Most people I've spoken to are assuming that Davydenko is the one profiting from this. I'm not so sure. It would not surprise me if threats have been made against Russian where he is given little choice but to tank his way out of these matches.

Whatever the case, Davydenko should be suspended from the tour indefinitely. He isn't some unknown journeyman looking to make a few dollars on the side. We are talking about the number four ranked player in the world here. But it wont happen. Evidence will be near impossible to obtain.


UPDATED The sport of tennis has seen its fair share of suspect matches over the past few years but perhaps none have been as significant or blatant as today's match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello in Poland.

Several hours before the match, world #4 Davydenko was offered at 1.18-1.20 with bookies while his Argentine opponent, ranked #87 was bet at 5.75. Then in the hour or so before the match, there was an extraordinary plunge on Vassallo. On betting exchange Betfair[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/BRIANF%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG], Vassallo traded in from 6.00 into 1.51 while Davydenko drifted from 1.11 to 3.00 before a ball was struck on turnover of AUD $1.3 million.

When Davydenko won the first set 6-2, punters could be forgiven for thinking that the match was indeed not a fix. But Vassallo was still trading as a 1.65 favourite. When he broke in the first game of the second set, he went into 1.27 and when serving at 2-1 (still down a set) Vassallo was matched at 1.06. After wrapping up the second set with a Davydenko forehand error, Vassallo was out to 1.20.

Davydenko had started to receive assistance from a trainer on his left foot during the second set and despite getting more attention at the start of the third, Vassallo's price drifted from 1.20 to 1.35. Finally with the market settled at 1.10, Davydenko retired at 2-1 on serve in the 3rd set. Over AUD$8.5 million was traded on the match with Betfair.

The Betfair[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/BRIANF%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG] forums went into meltdown over the match with the accusations flying around such as "fixed", "ban Davydenko", "void" and "ATP disgrace".

One bookmaker spoken to by OnThePunt said that the number of suspect matches this week meant that they will seriously be considering not betting tennis anymore.

UPDATE. Betfair[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/BRIANF%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG] have taken the extraordinary step of voiding all bets on the match following a crisis meeting on Friday morning UK-time. They issued the following statement.

"Following consultation with the men’s professional tennis tour, the ATP, Betfair has decided to void all bets placed on Thursday’s 2nd round match between Nikolay Davydenko and Martin Vassallo Arguello at the Orange Prokom Open. Betfair suspended settlement of bets at the conclusion of the match yesterday because of concerns over irregular betting patterns. The company has taken this action in the interests of maintaining integrity and fairness in all our markets."


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