iGaming Daily

Speaker 1 (00:00.204)
Hello and welcome to today's edition of iGaming Daily brought to you in partnership with OptiMove, the number one CRM marketing solution for the iGaming industry. Today, we're going to be discussing the hitherto unexamined link between the darts player who lost to Madaz Rasmataz Razma in the first round of the 2003 PDC World Championship and the peculiarly American phenomenon of March Madness.

I'm Martin Elliott and joining me today to discuss these weighty matters are from the first city of Manchester, Ted Ormclay, editor of SBC News and from the fine and at the time of recording still fiercely independent country of Canada, Tom Nightingale, the editor of Canadian gaming business and contributor to SBC Americas. Ted, how are doing?

I'm very well. Thank you, Martin. I enjoyed your application to become a Dart MC sort of compare there with your pronunciation of the players names. I'm looking forward to seeing you at the Alley Palli later this year. Tom, as always, great to see you again, mate. I can't remember the last time you and me shared a studio or a bar table or anything. So yeah, good to see

I genuinely think it was a Canadian gaming summit last year, think possibly.

Well, I can't believe for a minute Tom and Ted that either of you shared a beer at Canadian Gaming Summit last year. Anyway, let's perhaps gloss over that small detail and get into today's discussion. Ted, this is very much in your beat because I'm fairly sure that the darts player Prakash Jeeva will not be particularly well known on the other side of the Atlantic. In fact, he's not particularly well known here, is he? So what can you tell us about

Speaker 3 (02:01.056)
I going to say, I don't think he's particularly well known, even among the most ardent Darts fans. As I think we're going to go into later, probably, think it's obviously quite indicative that cases like this do tend to happen further down the respective pyramids or leagues, levels, whatever you want to call it, of different sports, where earnings are probably considerably less and people are more vulnerable to targeting or to

more likely to get involved in things like this. yeah, as you said, so Prakash Jihwa has been suspended for eight years this week by the Darts regulatory authority after an investigation by the UK gambling commission. The thing that was quite interesting about this was, believe it was a, you and me have both read the report on this. It was a Darts referee who first noticed the irregularities around betting on the fixtures that Prakash Jihwa was.

participating in and you notice these through the bet fair exchange of all places as well. I think the report gave the impression that he was whilst maybe not officiating these matches, whilst obviously paying attention to them. He was also checking out the liquidity on the bet fair exchange to see if there's any particularly out of ordinary betting habits going on, which I found quite interesting.

Quite a solid commitment to his job from the referee there, I think. I think we'll all agree.

It's an unusual hobby really, isn't it? Yeah. And as you say, so the Darts event in question, actually this investigation has taken a long time, a number of years, was the Modus Super Series. Now, if you haven't heard of the Modus Super Series, you no doubt won't be alone because it's an event that is for people who can't get a card on the PDC World Tour. So you have to get...

Speaker 2 (03:34.778)
Disappointment.

Speaker 1 (04:02.072)
Essentially you're looking at people outside the top 100, generally speaking. And there are one or two legends in that, but when I say legends, typically people who won the, if you know about the Darts split, the BDO world championship and didn't quite make the grade when they went to the PDC. So it's a really low level tournament this. So I found it interesting that not only was this guy watching the Betfair exchange,

International Betting Integrity Association was also involved here. They flagged up irregular betting patterns on three matches involving Jiwa over a period of a couple of months. There's some staggering detail in the report if in fact you don't have any hobbies either and you've got two hours to read your way through it. I'm not sure I'd recommend it as a great

plot device. But one thing that stood out to me was, well, two things in reality. One is the amount staked. So on these non-televised matches, one of the two sort of turns out there were friends of Jiwa, the two betters who were taking advantage of him deliberately performing poorly in these matches. And one of them had staked

Speaker 1 (05:33.041)
£2,751.75 to win £8,377.69. So, you know, we're not talking mafia scale corruption here, but it's a very tidy win for the man in the street. And what also stood out for him was that this guy had placed 17 bets on non, on darts matches in the same period in which his mate wasn't playing.

He'd only staked 82 pounds 80 at an average of four pounds 87 on the other games. So I'm not sure, not saying his behavior stood out, but it didn't take a genius to catch him. I think we're saying here Ted, you've read the WhatsApp messages. These are always hilarious. I find we shouldn't laugh. This is a serious subject, but dumb criminals always have a bit of an entertaining side. And these guys were not dumb enough to delete their WhatsApp messages, were they?

Would you,

Yeah, like you say, as always, the messages between people involved in these things are always quite revealing. They stood out quite a bit for them, think, kind of acknowledging that they may have pushed it a bit too far, I believe, weren't they? In one of the exchanges where they basically said, like, yeah, we'd better not do this again. And then one of them was going, well, I think he might get kicked out of the tournament now because,

Because as you say, how much you say was 2000, you stake 2000 pounds.

Speaker 1 (07:02.54)
Yeah, 2700, yeah.

after staking just under a fiver on various other matches, which already in itself is something that will stand out to bookmakers and the IBIA and other stakeholders involved, the commission of course. But it's not only that, I guess it's also, as we were talking about earlier, the level of competition this is at. It's not like, darts isn't like football in that, know, football has got such a massive following that you probably, it's not that unusual that you'll get someone betting.

a reasonable amount of money on a team in like League 1 or League 2. If they follow that League quite a lot and know a lot about the team, they've got a lot of confidence in that team. Maybe they're a hometown supporter with a few quid spare. With darts, the biggest betting events as always, like in any other sport, but more so in darts, I guess, are going to be the big ones, aren't they? And this fixture, as you said, Martin, is for people outside of the top 100. It's not like it was the Luke Littler versus Michael Van Gogh in final, which is, you know, one of the

I think the most widely viewed fixture in darts history or something like that and probably I'd imagine it'd be interesting to speak to bookies to see how much turnover they had on that. This is a very small, very niche fixture that someone betting two grand on, even if they had bet reasonable amounts on other fixtures, someone betting two grand on this would stand out regardless. And that's something they clearly didn't consider.

as well and then realized a bit too late according to these WhatsApp exchange.

Speaker 2 (08:33.645)
Here's stories like this out in the U S as well. I'll say where you hear this though, all of a sudden there'll be people who are laying down just like an inexplicable amounts of money on sort of Russian basketball or leagues like this. It just strikes me as it's almost a slapstick way to kind of bet, you know? Um, yeah.

I mean, it looks like the pleasing thing about this is the system worked, right? They got caught. The International Betting Integrity Association spotted it. There was quite a long investigation by the gambling commission and by the Darts Regulatory Authority, which they took into account a lot of evidence, including things like

had former professionals analyzing the quality of this guy's play and saying it's impossible for him to be that rubbish that often, which is, mean, if he wasn't guilty, that's a really embarrassing thing for him to happen anyway. I think in general, this looks like it's a bad look for the sport, but it's a success story for the industry though, isn't it? That we clamp down on a bit of this corruption.

Yeah, I'd say so. I say, it shows that the systems in place are doing a job, certainly in this case. well, there are multiple other cases of, especially with, we've mentioned football and we're obviously, we are talking about darts, but we've seen lots of examples in football over the past year or two of some quite, some more high profile players further up the English leagues who've been caught out for involvement in betting scunders, usually in their case, obviously placing bets. But the systems are clearly catching these people out.

Again though, the thing I would say is is interesting that the way they were caught out was by this referee who happened to catch some of the activity on the Betfair exchange. I'm not sure, do you think there's room for a more robust system to be in place than someone monitoring the exchanges and liquidity on a private bookmaker, on a private bank exchange I should say.

Speaker 1 (10:37.614)
I'm sure there is, but the IBIA and companies like SportRadar and so on are involved in monitoring the activity on license bookmakers at a much higher level and will spot quite small things as well. The bigger problem of course comes if you're a more intelligent criminal than these three mates who've got together thinking they might make a few thousand pounds.

You might be fixing this at an illegal bookmaker or an offshore bookmaker in Asia. I am not going just for the purposes of clarity. I'm not intending to get involved in a betting scandal, but were I to be intending that, that would be what I would do. One final thing about this case, which we can joke about it a bit, but it's a bit of a tragedy for the GWA, the player in

He's made a very stupid decision and it's cost him any hope of having a career in professional darts. No. but one thing that stood out from the, the decision from the darts regulatory authority, they put in their case against him. stated match fixing and match manipulation are rightly seen as a cancer to sport and sports such as darts, which depends on individual skill.

Competitions such as the Modus Super Series, where relatively low-ranked players are invited to play, are particularly vulnerable to match manipulation and match fixing.

Now going into this, sort of in the days following this, we also had a case involving four sort of fairly low ranking table tennis players being banned for involvement in a fixing scandal in Ukraine. was four English players. I don't know what they were doing playing in a very small tournament in Ukraine other than

Speaker 1 (12:42.862)
It looks a bit like they were involved in fixing it on behalf of an Australian former player turned gambler. So Tom, I'd like to just get your... There's no definitive answer to this. What I'm hoping for is an opinion, I guess, as much as anything.

Should we be?

offering markets on events that are so far down the pyramid of sporting excellence that they're not attracting audience, the prize money is so small that players can't really make a living at that level even if they do well. Is that not perhaps inviting this kind of corruption?

I mean, it's a very interesting question, isn't it? It's certainly, you can see the potential concerns when it comes to not only integrity, but you say like, you know, talking about how much these athletes might be earning, like is it a livelihood for them? At what point do you say there are things that really, that there are sports that sort of almost just shouldn't really be bet on. It's interesting out here in the, you know, for SBC Americas in the US, because obviously so much of what is decided out here is on a state by state basis where

State regulators kind of have pretty overarching responsibilities in terms of saying which sports and which events can and can't be bet on. So we've seen various states. I used the Russian basketball example earlier, and I think the reason that came to mind is I remember writing a story about a particular state had ruled that out as a reasonable league to bet on.

Speaker 2 (14:26.566)
I certainly see the argument for it. guess the difficulty in the question is where do you draw the line? Who's to say there's no easy threshold is there where if you're people involved in sport are earning below this amount or the sport is this far down in the pyramid of importance or prestige, where's the line that you draw, I guess is the big problem with trying to answer that question.

Yeah, I guess so. What do you think, Ted? Obviously we can point to a case in the US with a basketball player whose name escapes me now, who's been banned for life. that'll be the guy. I'm ever professional and on top of the news from across the Atlantic, as you see. And there's a high profile betting case involving a Premier League player, which we'll not talk about because it's not decided.

Porter, that would be, yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:19.384)
So we don't know whether he's guilty or not, but perhaps the flip side of my original argument is that it can in fact, the top levels of sport.

Yeah, mean absolutely, we've seen it at all levels haven't we? As you say there was the case involving John T. Porter, mean that's probably the visible and widely, mean Tom you'd say obviously as a guy who lives in North America that's been the case as by far the most covered right?

I think it, I think if anything, it's been a game, bit of a game changer for the industry, to be honest, because the scrutiny that it has kind of, um, invited on the relationship between sports fandom, sports betting and the way that a lot of, there's a lot of stuff out here as well about the way that betters interact with athletes, which is a good point. I think about what should and shouldn't be bet on, you know, like you've got college sports and betting is so massive out here. And there's a whole line of argument at the moment about whether or not that should be bet on.

And I think the John Tate Porter case is, there's no doubt that it's opened up a big can of worms. There have been betting and sports related scandals obviously in North America before, but I certainly don't think the spotlight has ever shone more brightly than it's shining right

It's been huge, hasn't it? And it seems to have fueled a lot of the debates in America now that we've seen in the UK over the past few years about the extent of football, not football, sorry. I mean, this is obviously in the UK, they certainly have the extent of betting sponsorship in football in the UK and now talking about that in America with the extent of sponsorship and media coverage around betting in American football, basketball, baseball, and so on.

Speaker 3 (17:02.584)
Obviously the US is quite interesting from a media standpoint. Something that's done over in the US isn't done in the UK as much as the programs that talk about live odds and things like that. They actually offer a breakdown of betting lines on the sport at half time. That's something that we're not as familiar with in the UK. And obviously you've got that going on, but then when you have these quite high profile cases it does fuel a lot of debate and lot of disagreement.

And it is something that will lead to more pressure on the industry from the public and political spheres. On top of that, as you said, you've mentioned the huge popularity of college sports in the US. mean, there's some areas of the country where people will follow a college team more than a professional team, right? More than like the NFL or the MLB team. They'll follow the university side. Some of the biggest stadiums in the US are college.

sports stadiums as well aren't they? It really showcases how big it is. And there will of course be an appetite for people to bet on that because of their fandom, but kind of for the similar reasons we talked about with the darts earlier and another case we saw this week with the table tennis players getting sanctioned as well. The college athletes are definitely more vulnerable because you are

Well, you know, a younger age, less experience, less world experience, you could say. And also often in many cases, probably in need of cash and therefore easier to, much easier to target by illicit group.

think as well, hear so much about the biggest demographic of sports better typically being young men. mean, you're talking about college athletes, Madness is on at the moment out in the US, I've lived in North America for a decade and I still can't quite wrap my head around just how much of a phenomenon March Madness, the college basketball tournaments are. It is something that people book off in the calendar to watch.

Speaker 2 (19:01.486)
It's one of those where you fill out your bracket beforehand and then it's like the World Cup wall charts that we used to have. But from a betting point of view, it's hard to wrap your head around how big of a betting sort of season March Madness, the college basketball championship tournaments are. mean, the American gaming association estimated last week that just through legal sports books, which obviously

You know, is only a chunk of the market. $3.1 billion expected to be wagered this year on the men's and the women's March Madness college basketball tournaments. mean, we're talking phenomenal numbers. Interestingly, I mean, last year that's up from $2.7 billion last year. The AJA have actually changed the way they report now. We were talking earlier about offshore sports books or illegal, you know.

Back until a couple of years ago when AGA published those estimates, included all forms of betting. So unlicensed, unregulated sports books, also like informal kind of pools that people have with their mates and that sort of stuff. And 2023, the estimate was $15.5 billion just on March Madness. I mean, it's just when you have that level of interest and that level of money being staked on it and you're so in the conversation, we all

I think very keenly aware of the kind of abuse that even professional athletes get on social media, wherever it may be. Try and put yourself in the mindset of being a college athlete. You're at college, not being, there's a whole debate, isn't there, about whether being paid millions of pounds to play football should...

mean that you are willing to withstand a certain level of abuse from fans in the stadium or whatever. when you're a college athlete and you're a 21 year old man or woman and you're essentially playing for fun and to try and build a career in the future, to have people messaging you because you didn't hit a certain number of three-pointers in a basketball game and so you busted somebody's accumulator parlay bet wide open, that's a whole kind of different

Speaker 2 (21:15.704)
kettle of fish, think really. And that's why college betting, I referred to earlier, like in North America at the moment, particularly such a big debate about what should and shouldn't be legal. There's a big, big movement to try and ban player prop bets on individual performance stats, which obviously is where the John Tate Porter scandal kind of arose from as well, that he was undercooking his own performance. So I mean, it's often impossibly...

An impossibly deep topic to go into, but it's certainly very, very keenly felt this time of year in America with March Madness just because of the sheer numbers involved.

Yeah, all of us from the UK originally, I know you're living in the other side of the Atlantic these days, Tom, but it's staggering to think of student sports getting that kind of focus. mean, to all intents and purposes, these guys who were playing in the March Madness tournament are, they have the status of professional athletes without the rewards of professional athletes.

I don't think anyone's ever confused me with being a socialist or anything at this point, but I'm a little bit uncomfortable with that idea of those guys being, those men and women in fact, these days have this level of scrutiny. They have created this big industry. Lots of other people are getting rich around it. They get nothing. And I just wonder whether the, you put on top of that,

I the flip side of that argument will be, they have the potential to go into the NBA, the WNBA and become wealthy that way. But I just wonder if they're under that pressure already is putting betting on top of that, a whole new level of pressure for them, a whole new level of temptation for them. Is that ethically right? I don't have the answer to that question, obviously, but it'd be interesting to see.

Speaker 1 (23:15.03)
I believe Tom that has come up with lawmakers this week or last week. Hasn't somebody proposed a bill that would ban college sport prop bets across the whole country?

that there's a, it's filing in Congress. Yeah. So it's, you know, the sort of federal us, legislature rather than a particular state. yeah. Filed a bill, last week, I think that would ban, college prop bets. And I mean, it's a, like I've referred to, like, it's a pushed, we've seen in several states already, several states. I should say do it already.

have done it kind of of their own volition. again, it's normally the state, it's sometimes lawmakers, it's sometimes state regulators stepping in and deciding it for the state. But there are a few, I can't remember off the top of my head, Ohio definitely does it, that just don't blanket, just don't allow bets on college players, individual performances. We've seen several pieces of legislation filed this year as well at state level looking to push the same thing.

It all comes, mean, the president of the NCAA, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has been very, very forthright over the years. I mean, I think some of it, there's always a bit of lobbying, you know, to this, you know, to these kinds of things. But you have to accept, I think that there is a general wider risk. And I think it's the harassment piece really. It's that, you know, it's that these are young, these are young.

student athletes who simply just shouldn't have to be exposed to stuff like this. And a lot of states took up that call to ban it. Now we've seen this federal bill introduced where that how far it will get. I am dubious. feel like sort of blanket legislation like this tends to fizzle out. It's also, we've got the safe bet act, which has been reintroduced out here as well, which is one of these very high profile case that, it's been one of these kind of catch all legislations that

Speaker 2 (25:21.518)
Certainly in my opinion, just is simply just trying to do too much in one go. An interesting discussion I've heard out here is that if law makers really want to make change, the reason the Congress bill is so interesting about the college player bets angle specifically is that by honing in on that kind of angle, that seems to me an issue that might have legs trying to ban that particular, just that particular type of bet.

because there are clearly different issues involved there than there are with a lot of other sports betting. So I mean, it'll be interesting to see what comes of it. It's also good we're talking about this now at this time because this week actually there's been a very widely cited study done by the Associated Press in partnership with some research firm gauging the US public's opinion on betting, legal betting on pro sports versus college sports. And it's very interesting because 58 %

of adults who responded said that betting on professional sports they're fine with, think that should be fine, drops to 43 % for college sports. So it's a pretty big drop off. And so it's clear that in the public's mind and also in lawmakers mind, betting on pro sports and betting on college sports are perhaps becoming pretty distinct issues at this point with their own pros and cons.

Yeah, I mean, thanks, Tom. That was a detailed answer and actually quite a few sort of elements there, which I wasn't aware of. So I am looking forward to reading some more of your coverage about it in the coming weeks and months, because one thing we know about the American legislative process is that it takes a long time and keeps on coming back even when people have voted against it.

There'll be plenty more coverage of that on SBC Americas, I'm sure. So thanks for joining us today, Tom and Ted. Thanks as always for sitting in and sharing with us your knowledge of the minor darts event, the Modus Super Series. So, and thanks of course for listening and join us again tomorrow for another edition of iGaming Daily.