by Ryan D. Jaeger
The Guardian ran an article yesterday where the usefulness of the UK Gambling Commission came into question.
The UK Gambling Commission celebrates its third birthday this week and the article points out that in all those years, not one case of match fixing has been successfully prosecuted.
"It is unlikely that this means that the integrity of British sports is unimpeachable," states the author of the article, Matt Scott.
"At a time when the London based Mazhar Majeed has emerged as an alleged fixer of international sports matches and when arrests have been made in the UK over a UEFA led inquiry into attempts to rig matches in its competitions, the commission's record is unedifying," he writes.
The article states that none of the anti-corruption experts interviewed for the piece had anything positive to say about the UK Gambling Commission's work in the area of anti-corruption.
Examining a government sponsored report on sports betting and integrity that was commissioned in February, the article quoted a paragraph of the findings: "The Gambling Commission has power to investigate cheating offenses but it has made it clear that it expects British sporting regulators to have the principal responsibility for dealing with sportsmen and women under the various sporting regulations."
The report, known as the Parry Report for Rick Parry who wrote it, suggested that the government create a new Sports Betting Intelligence Unit, which it duly did earlier this year.
However, the Guardian article points out that while the unit was created, not a single new investigator has been hired to actually work in it.
This may not be the kind of happy birthday greeting the UK Gambling Commission was expecting from one of the country's leading publications.
