Mathieu Warnier, media365: published on Friday 02 May 2025 at 4:00 p.m.
Legalized in France in June 2010, sports betting now have a preponderant place in the professional sport ecosystem, especially in tennis. This activity is also a source of ever more serious overflows, linked to cyberbullying and corruption.
If they appeared from Antiquity, sports betting experienced their boom during the 20th century. Long contained by the authorities, This activity was legalized in France under conditions in June 2010 In view of the Football World Cup organized that same year, of disaster memory for French football. With the development of technology, It is now possible to bet in real time on matches, sometimes outside the legal framework. One of the sports that is most concerned with this development remains tennis. Indeed, some spectators make the trip only to try to make money by playing with one of the faults of the system, which is the time necessary to update the scores.
Even if Betting out on a match from the edge of the court is a reprehensible activity in France. If some have found a parade by communicating the scores with an accomplice located outside the structure, this practice has already been a source of overflows. Indeed, A person suspected of illegal sports betting was arrested this Thursday on the sidelines of the Saint-Malo Open After being caught in the bag by a member of the security of the event. But it can go even further. While social networks have developed in the past 20 years, professional players have been able to create closer links with their fans, but This medal has a reverse that can be of great cruelty.
-Cyberharity sports betting
On the occasion of the Challenger tournament organized last March in Thionville, French player Arthur Bouquier was the target of threats from a bettor Having bet on the performance of the one who was then 225th in the world. A phenomenon which is not however recent, however. While the Canadian Rebecca Marino had put her career in parentheses from February 2013 to January 2018 to preserve her mental health in the face of the surge of insults, the Frenchman Mathilde Johansson had already mentioned the subject in May 2014 in the daily columns Le Figaro, entrusting having “cut into pieces with horrible messages” All written in English after a defeat against Flavia Pennetta a few years ago. As early as 2018, the Frenchwoman Marine Parted alerted to the harassment and the threats which she was the subject on social networks on the part of unhappy bettors in the columns of L’Equipe Magazine.
While some prefer to silence these actions against them, Others have decided to counterattack. This is how Benoît Paire, after an elimination in the first round in Estoril in April 2022, had decided to publish the litany of insults received through networks By asking yourself the question: “Is it normal for you?” ». More recently, the Hungarian Norbert Gombos did not hesitate to question the short of the spectators who were actually bettors who took pleasure in disturbing him during the meeting. Over the years, both ATP and WTA have implemented programs to protect players from these abuses. For female tennis, the governing body went so far as to ally with ITF, Wimbledon and the American Tennis Federation (USTA) to set up a watch system concerning cyberbullying.
Corruption that follows from sports betting
But the development of sports betting in tennis goes hand in hand with another drift which is The handling of game results, in other words corruption. In charge of these questions, the International Agency for the Integrity of Tennis (ITIA) recently hit the table after a scandal of rigged games. So, No less than five French players who were heavily sanctioned After a investigation by Professor Richard McLaren, who had previously worked on the state doping scandal on the sidelines of the Winter Games in Sochi in 2014. Having recognized having manipulated the result of 20 games in 2017 and 2018, Yannick Thivant was thus banned for life of tennis. A case that had been preceded by the suspension of all activity in tennis for ten years of Lény Mitjana.
The latter was also involved in a manipulation system orchestrated by Grigor Sargsyan, himself sentenced to five years in prison in Belgium in June 2023. Another French player, Maxence Brovillé, was also in the viewfinder of ITIA for rigged matches. To fight this scourge, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) has implemented a four -point strategy for several years: Awareness, detect, alert and protect. It is therefore a question of approaching the subject with the youngest players, of a close collaboration with the various national and international authorities concerning sports betting, to offer players who have been asked to manipulate a match of means to prevent the competent services and finally to allow players victims of cyberbullying to be helped but also accompanied. Drifts that are taken seriously but the parades are far from sufficiently effective.
