There are widespread calls throughout the world to ban betting exchanges. The reason for this is that it is far easier to fix a race or match as the betting exchanges allow punters to lay (bet against) a horse or team winning. Now race/match fixers only have to ensure the collusion of one jockey/trainer or one team rather than a whole host of jockeys/trainers or both teams. When it comes to horse racing or greyhound racing, all a trainer has to do to ensure that his horse or dog does not win is to ensure that the horse/dog is not race fit. This is extremely difficult for racing authorities to prove and get convictions. So the question is if betting exchanges have made it so easy to fix a race that they have become a serious danger to fair competition.

There is no real clear cut answer. I am sure you wanted to see a "Yes" or a "No" to the question. Race and match fixing have been around as long as racing or competitions have taken place. To the determined and unscrupulous race/match fixers, they will fix races and matches whether betting exchanges exist or not. I knew of a professional gambler pre-betting exchanges who made a very profitable living off gambling on horse races. How did he do it? Well it wasn't that he was an expert tipster, form reader or extremely lucky. You probably guessed it by now that he made serious money on races where he knew the winner. There was a major scandal in Italy where soccer matches in their Premier Liga were fixed. In the US, there was a time when major league baseball was riddled with match fixing. In the UK, Asian gangs were attempting to rig UK soccer Premier League football matches. In Asia, there are millions bet on every match as they consider the UK Premier League free from corruption so they deem the results to be fair; i.e. when they bet on a match, they get a fair chance. And when it didn't work to get the collusion from players and the result of a football match was going against them, they blew up the spotlights to stop the match. Cricket has always had allegations of match rigging hanging over it even though it is considered a sport played by honourable gentlemen. This all came to a head when the then captain of South Africa, Hanse Kronje, admitted to taking bribes to fix match results. There are several documented cases where horses have been doped. Once I saw a race involve 3 horses. Two short priced horses and a long shot. The initial favourite drifted out whilst the second favourite was bet heavily into favouritism. The long shot struggled and it was left to the two others. The initial favourite was travelling ominously well and it seemed that the punters would lose badly. That was until the second last when the jockey (name withheld for legal reasons) just brushed the top of the fence and somehow he fell off the horse. To me and everyone else watching the race, it looked more like a jump off the horse than a fall as the horse landed perfectly and kept gallopping all the way to the line well ahead of the winner. These are just some examples of race/match fixing pre-betting exchange era. And it will continue. It is in the human nature to strive to make "easy" money.

Betting exchanges have just made it so much easier to cheat. So rather than being a dominant facilitator of cheating, betting exchanges have merely made it easier e.g. for a struggling trainer to be tempted to race a horse that is unfit to race. Betting exchanges have probably increased the number of people involved in race/match fixing. Having said that, there will always be cheating going on when it comes to any form of gambling. It is a risk you take when making a bet. The irony is that the serious money is made by cheats in the stock markets where billions of dollars are traded daily. Take for example all the insider trading going on when people act on a piece of information that they know will affect a stock price in a particular way before it has become publicly known. Then there are the scandals involving the leading financial institutions advising their customers to buy Internet stock even though they knew that they were essentially worthless so that they could make their commissions and/or sell off their stocks.

At the end of the day, betting exchanges have become so popular for one reason only. People like them!!! Plain and simple. Market forces in perfect action. Unless they are banned by government legislation, they will continue to grow. They provide increased variety for punters and often better value than the traditional bookmakers. If you are set on betting on a particular horse (as you are unlikely to ever to know if a race has been fixed or not), it is just common sense to shop around for the best net price. If a bookmaker is offering odds of 4/1 whilst you can get 8/1 at the betting exchanges, anyone with any brains would take the 8/1 available at the betting exchanges. Furthermore, many betting exchanges allow betting in running. This allows punters to hedge previous bets or simply bet on a horse they think will win. So if betting exchanges are banned, then punters will lose out. Choice will be stifled. Bookmakers will make more money. If authorities are so worried about corruption in racing or sports, then ban professional horse racing, greyhound racing, football, baseball, cricket and so on, as well as the stock exchanges where the biggest cheating is going on. Yes, I am sure you thought this to be a ludicruous idea (or maybe not?). And so would it be to ban betting exchanges. Treat adults as adults. Not as stupid morons who need a big brother to tell them what to do or not to do!