Betfair on the Front Foot Over Sport Gambling Cheats Betfair on the front foot over sport betting cheats 21 August 2011 The leader of the global Olympic movement, Jacques Rogge, has called match-fixing and corruption as big a hazard to sporting stability as doping. Unfortunately, sporting scandal and attempted misaligned betting coups have all too frequently fit, as recent football match-fixing occasions in Finland and South Korea have shown. Those occasions, like in 2015's furore surrounding 3 Pakistan cricketers - consequently offered restrictions - and the bowling of "no balls" versus England at Lords, were connected to prohibited gambling rings. But for genuine betting companies, whether traditional High Street outlets or more recent online wagering organisations, these occasions all tend to be lumped together in the public's mind under the one heading of "betting". "Much of what we have actually seen has actually been from the prohibited Asian markets - there is a substantial distinction in between them and ourselves," says a senior private investigator at online gambling firm Betfair. "But it is all about perceptions, and people just see the headlines about gambling without looking deeper." It is to avoid such damaged associations with jagged gaming rings that firms such as Betfair go to fantastic lengths to keep track of the betting patterns on its site. 'Prevent, spot, examine' The firm is the world's major betting exchange - a set-up that enables gamblers to bank on sporting occasions at odds set by other bettors. Betfair makes its cash by taking a commission from winning bets. The company's head office ignores the River Thames at Hammersmith, west London, and homes Betfair's corporate, technical, marketing, and user-experience teams.