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The International Tennis Federation (ITF) and Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) Supervisory Board has announced plans to tighten up integrity safeguards for the World Tennis Tour (WTT), including a ban on the collection of live scoring data for minor events offering prize money up to $15,000.
Initially, the Independent Review Panel (IRP) appointed to address betting-related and other integrity issues facing the sport, proposed discontinuing all live scoring data and streaming for both ITF WTT $15k and $25k events. However, after discussions between the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) and IRP, the latter’s final report instead revised its approach to recommend that only the sale of ITF WTT $15k matches be discontinued.
The Supervisory Board and the ITF have agreed to a timetable for reducing the supply of live scoring data for WTT $15k matches – something that has been ongoing since December 2018. Under this agreed timetable, up to 3,500 fewer matches will have been made available to the betting markets in 2019 compared to 2018 and further reductions will continue during 2020 and 2021.
The prohibition will be accompanied by the creation of more events with a prize pot of at least $25k, to discourage unofficial data collection at the $15k events.
“In-play betting makes up 80% of IBIA members’ tennis markets and over 95% at ITF level. Retaining live data for $25k matches and setting out an expansion of that tour is an overwhelmingly beneficial move by tennis both from an integrity and commercial standpoint,” explained ” IBIA chief executive Khalid Ali.
