Courtsiding Betting: A Serious Issue For Regulators

courtsiding sports betting

When the prospect of legal sports betting began to actually seem like a very real possibility last year, the first concern that popped into the minds of many was the risk of increased match-fixing.

Fans, gaming regulators and special interest groups were quick to express concerns that athletes and officials may be tempted to work with corrupt gamblers to fix the outcomes of games.

The possibility has always existed, of course. Whether or not courtsiding is legal, sports betting will always pose a risk to sporting integrity.

After all, one need only consider the Pete Rose or Tim Donaghy scandals for examples of betting-related corruption at the highest levels of professional sports. In both examples, the man at the center of the scandal did extensive business with black market bookies well before sports betting was legalized anywhere outside Nevada.

But now that betting on sports is legal, there is still some fear such issues could become more common now that sports betting is more accessible. So far, corruption does not appear to be an issue. We’re still very early in the game, of course, but things have run smoothly so far in terms of integrity.

There is, however, another issue that could arise for states with legal sports betting as it becomes more prevalent.

It is an issue that sportsbooks and authorities have been trying to combat in other countries for years and has been more prevalent in some sports compared to others. It doesn’t impact the integrity of the game, but it could cost sportsbooks millions of dollars.

It is called courtsiding. So, What is courtsiding?

Courtsiding is a practice in which an individual(s) at a live sporting event relay game/match specific information to another person for the purpose of placing an in-play wager with a sportsbook. The idea is to get the bet in before the sportsbook can receive up-to-date data from the event.

Basically, the idea of courtsiding betting is to take advantage of technological and/or broadcast delays to bet on an outcome that has already happened before the sportsbook knows it has. The delay is often just a few seconds, but that can be all the time someone needs to get a bet placed.

It is not universally banned, but some countries have indeed made it illegal. The first-ever arrest for the offense of courtsiding occurred in Australia back in 2014. The UK, however, sees it differently and does not consider courtsiding betting a criminal matter. Even so, stadium and arena owners still retain the right to eject fans and even ban them for life for courtsiding.

It is worth pointing out that the games themselves are not necessarily impacted in any way when people engage in courtsiding. This is a problem that impacts sportsbook operators.

While some may scoff at the idea of making it an illegal practice and say they are “just trying to level the playing field,” the fact remains that sports betting is all about placing wagers without knowing how a game is going to play out. In jurisdictions where sports betting is legal, courtsiders are still cheating a legitimate business. A comparison could be drawn to the stock market and insider trading.

The possibility of courtsiding is something that likely concerns the governing bodies of every major sport. In recent years, however, it seems to have become a particularly widespread problem in tennis, cricket, and basketball.

Back in 2016, the Guardian reported that a handful of international tennis umpires from Kazakhstan, Turkey, and Ukraine were banned after getting caught courtsiding. While working matches on the International Tennis Federation’s Futures Tour, they delayed updating scores just long enough to allow their compatriots elsewhere to place in-play wagers already knowing the outcome.

In 2014, courtsiding became a real issue for the New Zealand Basketball League (NBL). Local media outlets reported that several people had been employed at league games to relay information to their partners overseas (New Zealand has one sportsbook and does not allow in-play wagers). They would then place in-play wagers with advanced knowledge of the outcome.

While the practice is not illegal in New Zealand, the NBL doesn’t exactly embrace it, either.

“We’ve sent a very strongly-worded letter to all of our teams asking them to be vigilant,” then-chairman Sam Rossiter-Stead told the Waikato Times (via Stuff.co.nz). “Although this practice is not illegal, it’s certainly highly undesirable, and we have asked teams to eject spotters from their venues and trespass them from future games.”

At the U.S. Open in 2016, 20 people were ejected from the tournament and banned for 20 years for courtsiding. One man tried to return the following year and was arrested for trespassing.

Everything. With numerous states legalizing sports betting and in-play betting in particular, courtsiding is bound to happen at some point or another if it isn’t already. While there haven’t been any reports of gamblers courtsiding to place wagers at US-licensed sportsbooks, nobody is really looking all that hard either.

If fans haven’t figured out how to make it work in baseball or football games, they will in time. The same could also go for golf betting, where someone in attendance could easily transmit a missed putt to a buddy on the outside with a smartphone in hand.

International sports betting operators such as Bet365 and William Hill have been dealing with the courtsiding issue for years and are likely on the lookout here in the States. US-centric firms such as BetRivers and DraftKings, however, are going to be dealing with this kind of thing for the first time ever

In any case, the sportsbooks that are or soon will be affected are legitimate businesses that deserve the full protection of US law, but there are some tricky First Amendment issues at play here.

Some states have considered enacting anti-courtsiding laws already.

New York lawmakers tried to give stadium officials the power to police their crowds of courtsiders. However, that particular bill ended up dying in the Assembly.

Officials in Michigan have discussed including a provision in an upcoming bill that they were recently taking comments on.

Would a ban on courtsiding even be Constitutional? Technically, all a person is doing is gathering news and sharing it with others.

Ryan Rodenberg, an associate professor at Florida State University, thinks it could be a First Amendment issue:

“Recent lobbying efforts to statutorily ban information and news from being disseminated on-site is a back-up plan of sorts in the event the so-called “data mandates” are not enacted or enforceable. There is a long history of Supreme Court rulings finding that news-gathering is protected under the First Amendment.”

Giving the power to eject and ban people to stadium officials has been the most common path so far in other countries with legal sports betting. The downside to that approach is someone still has to monitor entire crowds at games to make sure banned individuals do not come back. That is easier said than done.

Some of the top soccer leagues in Europe have discussed making use of facial recognition software to combat the problem and identify suspects. Using an official data provider will not necessarily work. That was what lead to the tennis officials being banned; they had control of the official data and manipulated it to aid their betting partners.

The only real deterrent would be making it illegal and punishable with a prison sentence. But in the U.S., that runs into significant free speech and Constitutionality issues. What will most likely happen in the US is betting data providers and integrity monitoring groups devote more resources to combating issues such as courtsiding, forming relationships with stadium officials, and ensuring information (such as suspected courtsiders) is shared across state lines.

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