Gambling 911 – Not the best timing as the FIFA World Cup is set to begin this week but BetFred.com customers from variously countries across the globe were advised this weekend they can no longer bet online with the company. BetFred.com has opted to pull out of the German and Canadian markets as well as a host of other countries including the Ukraine. An email sent out to these customers advised that they have 30 days to withdraw any funds they have on the site.  The new policy applies to both new and existing customers. BetFred.com was encouraging affected customers…

Aljazeera – The man in the dark green shirt and matching scarf, stood, statuesque, on Stevenage Road, in the upper-middle-class district of Fulham in west London. Some other fans, in Scottish kilts, stopped to take his picture. He wanted to be noticed, because he held a placard in front of his chest with words written in red ink across it: “We don’t fix matches, we WIN them.” Across the road, at Fulham’s Craven Cottage stadium, the placard bearer’s beloved Nigeria team was about to kick off against Scotland, in the first of Nigeria’s friendly preparation matches for the World Cup….

SCMP – Hong Kong police are launching a month-long operation against illegal soccer betting in the run-up to the World Cup. Working in conjunction with Interpol in nine other countries, local police are coordinating efforts to eliminate the multimillion-dollar problem. Police in the city also say they are being thwarted in attempts to stamp out illegal soccer betting as most syndicates operate online, on the mainland and offshore. Superintendent Dan Ng Wai-hon, from the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau, said yesterday that criminals had moved to the mainland and regions such as South America and Taiwan since local authorities got…

More match-fixing took place in England than anywhere else this season, according to a damning report presented at the European Parliament on Tuesday. Eleven English games were found to have fallen victim to betting fraud by Federbet, an organisation of top European casino owners and bookmakers which monitors suspicious gambling patterns. That was more than was identified in any other country, providing a devastating blow to English football’s reputation for integrity. Ten of the fixtures named by Federbet took place in the Conference North and South, the level of the game at which an investigation by the Telegraph last year…

Las Vegas Sun – New Jersey is bolstering its legal arguments as it tries to get the U.S. Supreme Court to consider its effort to overturn a ban on legalized sports betting in all but four states. In a filing submitted Tuesday, the state says the federal law needs to be reviewed immediately. Theodore Olson, who won the Bush v. Gore election case in 2000, says the ban impermissibly restricts states’ rights. He also says the high court needs to consider the way the law treats states differently. The law restricts sports betting to states that met a 1991 deadline…

Police from Macau, Hong Kong and mainland China are stepping up enforcement action against illegal World Cup betting as police from both Special Administrative Regions and from Guangdong province have launched a month-long crackdown on illegal football gambling, Hong Kong Standard newspaper reports. The 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil kicks off on June 12 with the final set for July 13. In June 2010, Macau’s casino revenue declined 20 percent from the previous month, a drop that was attributed by some financial analysts to the World Cup keeping some gamblers away from gaming tables and slot machines. Gambling revenue for the…

iGaming Business – Federbet, an organisation of leading gaming operators that monitors suspicious gambling patterns, has reported that more alleged match-fixing took place in England than any other European country during the 2013-14 season. In a report delivered at the European Parliament, Federbet alleged that 11 English games were targeted last season. A total of 10 of the fixtures took place in the Conference North and South, the sixth-tier of English football, in which several players have already been accused of corruption. A game between Notts County and Everton in the Women’s Super League was the 11th fixture named, the…

Malta Today – The Maltese government will continue to push for changes to a new definition of illegal sports betting which is being drafted by the Council of Europe, and pushed by France. According to the Parliamentary Assembly, illegal betting and match-fixing are “alarming, widespread practices” which jeopardise both sporting ethics and rule of law, as they are closely interconnected with money laundering and international organised crime. The Council of Europe is thus pushing for a Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, open to all States. The gaming industry provides 12% of Malta’s total GDP. Remote gaming on its…