Olympic officials will work with Interpol investigators this summer to track illegal betting rings around the Beijing Games under a new zero-tolerance approach to gambling and drugs in sport. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is deploying a special monitoring unit amid fears that the credibility of results could be compromised by betting scams.
China is a $100 billion-a-year (about £50 billion) market for illegal betting and sport is popular among speculators. Football and tennis, both of which are Olympic sports, attract the most money.
The IOC will use Early Warning System, a company set up last year by Fifa, football’s world governing body, to work with its staff during the Games in August to monitor suspicious betting patterns. The agency, which investigates allegations of match-fixing