Over the past few years, we have seen the sports industry become plagued by scandal. Normally, the sports that are subject to these controversies are football and rugby – but, it now seems that UFC has been affected as betting on the sport has been banned in Victoria. According to Fight News Australia, the Victoria Commission for Gambling and Liquor Regulation (VCGLR) banned TabCorp from taking bets during UFC 193.
It was stated that that ban was enacted because UFC is ‘vulnerable to corruption and money laundering by organised criminals’. This is the first time ever that he VCGLR has ever banned operators from allowing bets to be made on a certain sport. Even among the many betting scandal that have occurred in Australia recently, the regulator has never decided that any sport was too dangerous to bet on – until now.
“Any sport where there are two people competing against each other and where a betting agency is taking bets, is open to corruption” says a spokesperson for the VCGLR. “The risk of corruption increases where the betting agency operates offshore and is not under the regulatory environment of the VCGLR”. Tom Wright, UFC Executive, has spoken out against the allegations that UFC is more open to corruption than other sports.
He states that the league deals with every single global complaint, and ensures that all fighters must sign a strict code of conduct that addresses betting corruption. He also notes that there has never been a reported case of match-fixing in the league ever. However, this is not the first time that UFC has been in trouble in Australia. In 2014, Western Australia banned UFC fights from taking place in cages.
It is the only state the country that has banned cage matches, but has given the league a somewhat tainted reputation.
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