The Role of the Courtsiders in Tennis Betting

ITF takes measures against the activities of the “courtsiders” in tennis betting, concerning the major tennis tournaments.

While everyone is familiar with the fact that tennis is one of the most popular sports for betting nowadays, not many are familiar with the role of the so called “courtsiders” in tennis betting. However the latest book by Brad Hutchins, "Game Set Cash! Inside the Secret World of International Tennis Trading" explains all the peculiarities related to them.

• “Courtsiders” deliver fast real time data
• ITF fights against “courtsiding”
• The activity is a threat for fair betting

Among the interesting information that Hutchins reveals is that, game-set-match is the only point during the game where people can bet after the fact and just take free money. The same is the case according to him with the retirements due to injury, gambling news report.

Courtsiders in tennis betting provide data for gambling operators

Brad Hutchins was a member of an association, composed by people that attended all the major professional tennis competitions in order to deliver real time data to their employers, operating thousands of kilometers away from them. The people like Hutchins, report gambling websites online, are called “courtsiders”. Their work is to provide fast, inaccurate, low quality information to betting operators all over the world. Another former “courtsider” explained his job for the BBC in the following way: "You would sit on court for as long as you were needed pressing the buttons, which were sewn into my trousers and relay the scores back to London. You'd press one for [Novak] Djokovic, two for [Andy] Murray, for example, as fast as you could. ... The purpose of us being there is that we can send back information a lot faster than TV or betting companies can get the data."

However, in the last few years commissions of the International Tennis Federation (ITF), responsible for organizing the WTA Tour for women's tennis, ATP World Tour for men's tennis and ITF for the four Grand Slams, are fighting against this kind of information delivery. There are even bodies such as the Tennis Integrity Unit from London that helps the officials of the ITF to prevent the activities of the courtsiders, report online sportsbooks in the UK. They put the so called “spotters” in the audience and they try to detect people among those in the courtside that are delivering some of the usual kind of signs, characteristic for the courtsiders. Nowadays the prohibition of transmission of real-time data is universalized on the tennis court, being applicable even to the media. This is especially the case because the information that is rapidly transferred can easily be sold.

ITF fights the “courtsiders” in tennis betting

This being the case, the most influential tennis bodies in the world, the WTA and the ATP decided to make a partnership with a company that will be responsible for transmitting data from all the matches they administer. This was a crucial step for them to make, if they didn’t want to lose the battle against the “courtsiders.” Jorge Salkeld, vice president at a global sports management company, states the ITF in this way secures the TV broadcasts that will have a short delay of a few seconds so as not to feed the gambling info. A short delay that will work for everyone. The United States Tennis Association, which organizes US Open also joined this initiative and announced that they have provided their own live web streamer for the tournament. It is clear that the notion of high-quality, officially-sanctioned data becomes crucial for successful regulation of the betting environment.

As a phenomenon, “courtsiding” was revealed in January 2014, when a British citizen was prosecuted for delivering real-time information from Australia to London during the Australian Open tournament. The employer of the man, the Sportingdata company, has after the incident come up with an announcement that they are not involved in any kind of illegal activities. The Australian criminal prosecution have soon after released the men since like the people that count the cards in the casinos, the “courtsiding” might be treated as a violation of the rules of the house, but it cannot be treated as illegal. The only prevention against “courtsiders” nowadays is that those who will be detected, get a prohibition for attending tennis matches on the tournaments in future. But, as online gambling sites in the US note, this is still not a plausible solution. The threat that the “courtsiders” impose is still on force, bringing with them the possibility to destroy the fair and successful sports betting infrastructure built in the past.