Two Men Charged In Australian Illegal Betting Investigation

• The New South Wales Police have arrested two men in connection to an alleged illegal betting scheme for the National Rugby League’s (NRL) Dally M Medal, which recognizes the league’s top coach.
• These men run a sports technology company that is contracted with the NRL to handle confidential information, and they allegedly used insider knowledge to place wagers.
• Illegal betting like this happens all over the world, but the only way to monitor for and prevent it is by legalizing and regulating sports betting.

NEW SOUTH WALES, Australia – Two individuals have been detained by the New South Wales Police in connection to an illegal betting incident involving the National Rugby League’s (NRL) 2019 Dally M Medal.

The two men, Joshua Wilson and Ben Trevisiol, have been charged with using confidential information to wager on the results of the award, which recognizes the NRL’s top coach of the season.

Wilson and Trevisiol each placed $10,000 bets on Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy, who ultimately won the award.

They allegedly used insider knowledge of the outcome to place these bets, and also allegedly shared this confidential information with others.

Police claim that the two exchanged text messages discussing how much money they would wager on Bellamy, and that these texts indicated that they knew Bellamy would win.

It is unknown if anyone else used this information to place wagers at this time.

Last week, police executed a search warrant on Wilson and Trevisiol’s company StatEdge—a sports technology company that was reportedly used by the Dally M Award judges to cast their votes.

StatEdge also held other contracts with the NRL covering roster changes and junior competitions.

In their statement on the matter, the New South Wales Police compared the incident to “what [they] see in organized crime syndicates.”

How Regulated Sports Betting Helps Prevent Suspicious Wagers

This is far from an isolated incident. Thousands of wagers around the world are placed with inside knowledge every year, which completely undermines the integrity of said bets.

But without the proper infrastructure to regulate and monitor sports betting, the vast majority of these illegal wagers go unpunished.

Well-regulated sportsbooks, whether in an online or retail setting, use sophisticated security algorithms to monitor for suspicious betting activity.

Once recorded, this data can be easily shared with authorities to build a case against the offender.

Without legal, regulated sports betting, people will still find ways to place wagers, but there will be no barriers in place to prevent nefarious actors from exploiting insider knowledge or otherwise abusing the system.

Only 18 states have launched legal sports betting and two dozen have passed sports betting legislation, but there are hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars in sports betting action in every state.

Without a regulated betting platform, people will simply turn to an unregulated one that is ripe for exploitation.

The only way to prevent illegal betting like the kind Wilson and Trevisiol were allegedly involved in is to bring all sports betting action out into the light where it can be properly monitored and enforced.

News tags: Australia | Ben Trevisiol | Craig Bellamy | Dally M Medal | Joshua Wilson | Melbourne Storm | New South Wales | New South Wales Police | StatEdge