Mark Davies (BetFair’s Managing Director)
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#1. Via our good friend Niall O’Connor, an interview (in French) of Mark Davies in the (French) Journal Du Net:
[Translation by CFM.]
#1. BetFair is ready to operate in France, if the French government allows that.
#2. Providing that competition is fair.
#3. As for sports corruption, BetFair gives the names of the bad guys to the Police and the sporting bodies.
#2. Mark Davies interviewed by The Daily Telegraph:
[Tennis] has always been liable to corruption.
I think that all sport has always been liable to corruption, by the very nature of it producing clear results one way or another. They say that chariot races were rigged for financial reward. I don’t see why subsequent sporting events should suddenly have been less liable to corrupt practice. We would strongly dispute the idea that sport suddenly has a corruption problem because of the boom in gambling.
The amount of money bet in the legal market may have grown — who knows if it has risen or fallen in the illegal one? — but the number of people who can be tempted by that money and use it for corrupt reasons is the same as it always was.
A few points to ponder, with regard to Betfair’s holier than thou
reputation.
First, to what extent its comprehensive audit trails (and the resulting high profile Court cases) may scare away informed insiders, and what impact this may have on overall market efficiency.
Second, whether it is possible that Betfair, despite its adherance to a “Napster” style defence, could ever find itself actually being charged with “facilitating” fraud.
Two good points. I don’t know what are the definitive answers.