The federal Labor government plans to introduce long-awaited national match-fixing laws that have been hailed as a game changer in the fight against corruption in sport.
Australian sport has been rocked by a series of fixing scandals in the past two decades as technology has facilitated the rise of online gambling, with sports betting turnover soaring past $50 billion a year.
The rise of online sports betting has heightened the risk of corruption.Credit: Stephen Kiprillis
Three players for A-League team Macarthur Bulls were charged by NSW Police last year over an alleged scheme in which a Colombian crime figure placed bets on them conceding yellow cards during games.
It was also revealed last week that former tennis prodigy Bernard Tomic was the focus of a multi-agency strike force launched in 2022 to investigate suspicious betting on two of his matches. The probe produced insufficient evidence to progress, and there is no suggestion Tomic is guilty of any criminal conduct.
Landmark national sport integrity offences designed to tackle match and spot-fixing have been promised for nearly 15 years and may now finally become a reality, with the Albanese government putting them on its agenda for 2025 as it bids for re-election.
Proponents of a national anti-corruption regime for sport believe it will be a huge leap forward in combatting the threat of results and in-game outcomes being manipulated for profit, which is often linked to organised crime.
Former Macarthur Bulls captain Ulises Davila, right, was one of three players from the A-League club charged by NSW Police.Credit: Getty
The majority of states and territories established their own legislation outlawing so-called cheating at gambling and the providing of inside information following the Ryan Tandy affair. In 2010, punters splurged on the North Queensland Cowboys to score first with a penalty goal in a National Rugby League match against Tandy’s Canterbury Bulldogs.
Offences are punishable by up to 10 years in prison in Australia’s two biggest states. Victoria Police’s Sporting Integrity Intelligence Unit has made breakthroughs on corruption in soccer, tennis, harness racing and e-sports, while NSW Police have laid charges in relation to soccer, tennis, rugby league and table tennis.
However, inconsistencies in provisions and sanctions between jurisdictions made enforcement problematic, according to Dr Catherine Ordway, an associate professor of sports management at the University of Canberra.
“Match-fixing very rarely stays inside one jurisdiction. It’s not usually Victorian people that are gamblers and involved in the grooming of Victorian athletes on a Victorian event. That pretty much never happens,” she said.
“Criminals are adept at finding weaknesses and exploiting them. If one state has weaker prosecution powers or there are state policing bodies who are not looking [for corruption in sport] … that will be exploited by criminals.”
A national legal framework, first flagged in 2011 when the federal government and states agreed on a national policy on match fixing, is also expected to beef up the capacity of the Australian Federal Police and Sport Integrity Australia to take on corruption in sport.
That would be welcomed by Malcolm Speed, the former chief executive of the International Cricket Council and the Australian Cricket Board (as Cricket Australia was formerly known), who was an early campaigner for jail terms for match fixing.
Speed was an administrator as cricket confronted some of its biggest betting-related controversies, such as the revelation that Shane Warne and Mark Waugh were paid by an Indian bookmaker for pitch and weather information and South Africa captain Hansie Cronje’s acceptance of bribes to throw matches.
“It’s human nature; there will always be someone who is in a compromised position or desperate for money who is approached … and falls for it,” he said.
The late Hansie Cronje answering questions at the King Commission into match fixing in June 2000.Credit: Andrew Ingram
“You need the legislation; you need the penalties in place as a deterrent.”
The push for federal laws comes as Sport Integrity Australia leads the process to have Australia ratify the Macolin Convention, an international treaty aimed at stamping out manipulation and other corruption in sport, signed by the Morrison government in 2019.
Australia is one of 43 signatories to the convention, which, when ratified here, would provide a constitutional head of power to Sport Integrity Australia to compel sports organisations, betting operators and competition organisers to share information and intelligence.
Citing major events on the horizon in Australia, such as the 2027 men’s rugby World Cup, the 2029 women’s rugby World Cup and the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, Ordway said there was a further reason to strengthen anti-corruption measures.
Lower-tier sports had proved even more vulnerable than the elite level. “We understand that there is betting right down into the community level, and masters-level sport and so on, so there are risks across the whole ecosystem of sport,” she said.
