An insight into Tennis courtsiding

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Euler
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I know it's been discussed before and is well known, but I thought this article gave a nice overview and some new insights: -
Given the control they wield over betting markets, it’s no surprise that chair umpires have been susceptible to corruption themselves. In 2016, The Guardian reported that chair umpires at low-level tournaments on the ITF Pro Circuit had essentially become courtsiders themselves, after taking bribes from betting syndicates.

“The four umpires who have been suspended are alleged to have deliberately delayed the inputting of these scores, thereby giving gamblers, some of whom may have been present at courtside, 30 seconds to a minute of advance warning before the betting odds moved in response to the updated score,” Sean Ingle reported. “In some cases, the umpires were texting the score directly to gamblers before it had been officially updated.”

One top chair umpire whom I spoke to who did not wish to be named said umpires sometimes feel a higher standard is placed on that task than actually officiating the match well.

“There is an imperative to not just be fast now, but accurate as well,” the umpire said of inputting the score after each point. “A strange directive, really: Please put in the score as fast as you can, but don’t make any mistakes while doing it. Scoring errors are the bane of the betting companies who pay for the data we input. Umpires have actually been sent home from Challenger events, for example, for making too many scoring errors in a match.

“It’s totally warped—you’d have to fuck up pretty badly with the rules to get sent home, but whatever you do, don’t input the score wrongly too many times.”

The umpire said that the tension this directive caused was another example of betting pressures having a corrosive impact on the people on court.
https://longreads.com/2018/09/03/losers-lunch/
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Dallas
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Very interesting article thanks, certainly an angle that hadn't occurred to me
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Derek27
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Surprised they don't just place bets themselves directly.
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