Written by :
Published on :
Sport and gambling have been in the headlines in the recent months, with various allegations about match-fixing in snooker.
And the sport's chief Barry Hearn has admitted "there may be other revelations we have to deal with in the future".
However, for those tasked with policing the sport for illegal activity, it can be hard to know if a shot was missed deliberately or not.
And snooker is not alone in facing the challenges of potential financial corruption, with the likes of football and horse racing also coming under the microscope in recent years.
Only last month, the eight-year ban from European competition imposed by Uefa on Macedonian club FK Pobeda for match-fixing was upheld.
Football integrity
"There is an awful lot of money sloshing around football, and where you have a lot of money you can have a lot of crime," says Matthew Johnson, head of legal regulation at the Football Association.
Mr Johnson's job involves upholding the integrity of football at all levels in England, as well as educating players about issues such as gambling.
FK Pobeda players celebrate a goal in a match from July 2005
He says that in recent years, there has been a huge growth of televised football, which, coupled with the ease of gambling online, has led to an explosion of betting on football around the world.
In fact, it is now challenging horse racing as the largest sport betting market globally, with much of the huge boom in football gambling coming in Asia.
Mr Johnson told the C5 conference on Sports Law and Business that in season 2009/2010, there was betting in Asia on 250 Blue Square Conference matches - the fifth tier of English football - and on 190 English youth and academy games.
"Now you can bet to lose," he says, referring to the gambling process known as "lay betting".
"But if a player bets on his team to lose, even if he is injured, that raises massive integrity issues and affects perception of your sport.
"We are trying our best to get the message across - the real issue in football is that there is a very much ingrained culture of betting among players, not just on football matches."
