The meeting - which involved Ministers from the British, Australian, French and Swiss Governments, international organisations including the United Nations, and betting operators - heard that last year’s figure for illegal betting was an estimated $140 billion (£86 billion).

In confirming this figure, Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, described it as "a budget much higher than that of many developing nations."

Rogge once again underlined the urgency of addressing what he described as "a big problem in the entire world.

"There is illegal betting where there is broadband internet."

The IOC President described reports of illegal betting within sumo wrestling as "another frightening example," adding: "There have been documented cases of cheating and match fixing in sum wrestling in Japan.

"There has been recently a very visible case in cricket.

"There is no safe haven in the world where nothing happens."

The meeting also heard that illegal online betting has grown by 70 per cent since 2006.

Betting in Europe was reported to be "six times higher" than it was eight years ago.

Regarding any possible betting scam within the Olympic Movement senior IOC member Richard Carrion reportedly commented: "It will take years to recover if we have a corruption scandal on a global scale."

Ron Noble, secretary general of Interpol, gave delegates details of three recent operations undertaken which have thwarted betting set-ups involving billions of dollars.

In 2007, an operation in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam involved 260 raids, 400 arrests and saw $700 million (£430 million) of illegal betting stopped.

The following year similar action in Indonesia resulted in 1,000 raids, 1,300 arrests, $17 million (£10 million) of recovered money and $1.4 million (£860,000) illegal bets stopped.

And last year an initiative in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand involving 850 raids netted 5,000 arrests, $10 million (£6 million), and $155 million (£95 million) in illegal bets stopped.



Rogge (pictured above right) said betting patterns were clearly established to avoid detection as much as possible.

"We know there are people betting in other continents on European second league divisions," he said.

"There are bets being taken on fourth division matches in certain leagues, so that shows you the problem.

"It’s for the most the popular sports - definitely yes.

"But in the popular sports it’s not necessarily in the first league or the top teams, it’s mostly as we see second division, third division, because of the small exposure to cameras, to supervision, less spectators.

"So if something strange happens it’s not going to be seen in highlights for the whole week as it would happen with the top match in some professional team sports."

Rogge confirmed that a working party is being set up and will meet again "within a couple of weeks" to consider the way forward.

The intention is to have measures firmly in place before the end of the year.

But he scotched the assumption that the way forward would necessarily be to establish a betting version of the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA), which was established a decade ago.

"WADA has one single doping code, one single list of accredited laboratories, one single list of forbidden drugs and one single list of punishments," Rogge said.

"But in illegal betting we have to work much more on an international basis because of the legislature that already exists in different countries."

The meeting heard details about the Conventions that already exist within the United Nations on organised crime and corruption.

"There was a very interesting discussion between the proponents of a new structure, a formalised structure, and the proponents of using the existing conventions that you have in the United Nations," Rogge said.

"The third view was to say don’t formalise too much, but be pragmatic, build alliances, build a communication system between the sport and the Government system and also international bodies like Interpol.

"So the three schools of thought are present and that’s what we want to have a working group studying.

"But we have to be ready as soon as possible.

"What we have from Interpol definitely is that illegal betting on the rise, and we have definitely to fight that with a sense of urgency.

"I think that sport is in danger.

"It’s not about the Olympics or the Olympic Games, it’s about sport in general.

"What we had this morning is a clear signal coming from the Governments, from international bodies like Interpol and international federations that there is illegal betting that threatens the credibility of sport."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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