What We're Reading
Gaming Companies Cancel Bets on Suspicious Ligue 1 Game
- ESPN FC, Tuesday, April 30, 2013 12:50 PM
Several online betting companies stopped taking bets ahead of Saturday’s Ligue 1 clash between Ajaccio and Montpellier after unusually high sums of money were wagered on relegation-threatened
Ajaccio earning a home victory. Lo and behold, Ajaccio ended up winning the game, 2-1.
According to a report from Montpellier-based paper Midi Libre, online betting operators and
France’s betting watchdog ARJEL were both immediately alerted to the unusual activity, which resulted in operators canceling all bets on the game. ARJEL said it is now investigating the
incident.
Sports daily L’Equipe on Tuesday reported that the incident may have come from a bug in the system of France’s state-owned bookmaker, Francaise des Jeux
(FDJ), which set the odds of an Ajaccio win mistakenly high, causing the FDJ to stop all bets on the game in order to avoid losing a significant sum of money. As a result, the report claims Sport
Radar, a company which monitors odds for France’s professional soccer leagues, is now looking into the matter, as well.
In the end, it was an exciting game: 10-man Ajaccio came-from
behind to score two goals in the last ten minutes to grab all three points from last season’s Ligue 1 champion. After the game, Ajaccio President Alain Orsoni told Le
Parisien that allegations of game-fixing were ridiculous. "It's a load of rubbish, it's completely without foundation," he said. "It's incredible! Those who watched the game no doubt saw that
nothing had been arranged."
