Jan. 7: A betting racket has rocked the ongoing Chennai Open tennis tournament in the city. The event organisers unearthed the scam after an interrogation of four foreign nationals — two Germans, an Italian and a Russian, who were caught betting live from the stadium through their gadgets.
All of them belong to the international betting syndicate and have come all the way to Chennai only for online gambling. Fernando Soler, the tournament director, confirmed the betting incident to this newspaper. “They were caught but let off with a warning,” he said.
However, a Tamil Nadu Tennis Association official added that the city police officials visited their hotels and interrogated them. “The ATP has taken photos of the accused and noted down their passport details, which will be circulated to tournaments across the world to curb the betting,” informed the senior official.
With a time difference of 15 seconds between the live match and online scoring system, tennis provides a big opportunity for betting from the venue. The TNTA official blamed the ushers for the betting incident. “Two of the four accused were sitting in a restricted area reserved for VIPs. Since not much crowd was there, the ushers allowed them entry,” the source added.
On Friday the security was beefed up at the stadium and the spectators had to go through frisking before they were let in.