Gambling on Wimbledon

First, there were the Black Sox. Then came the Boston College point shaving scandal of the 70s. Most recently, it's been match-fixing in soccer in Germany and Italy. Now, it seems, tennis may be next. Rueters is reporting that "unusual betting patterns" were detected before the first-round match between Britain's Richard Bloomfield and Argentina's Carlos Berlocq. An Internet bookmaking firm has contacted tennis authorities about unusual betting patterns after hefty sums were bet on a first round match at Wimbledon won by Britain's Richard Bloomfield. The alert was raised by the online betting exchange Betfair after up to 340,000 pounds ($619,300) were traded on world number 89, Argentina's Carlos Berlocq, to lose just hours before he went down 6-1 6-2 6-2 to Bloomfield, ranked 259, in Tuesday's match. That was around 30 times as much as had been invested on similar matches between relatively unknown British players at the tournament.