Top Qld Steward believes there is still lack of information

Perth Turf Talk | Australian Racing | Tue 21 August, 2012

story by Courier Mail

QUEENSLAND chief steward Wade Birch believes the integrity of the sport is being hindered by a lack of information being provided to regulators by both police and wagering operators.

Birch was particularly savage in his assessment of betting exchange Betfair.

Information sharing has become a hot topic, with integrity chiefs in Victoria and NSW lamenting a lack of co-operation from police after details of a Victorian Police investigation into race fixing came to light.

Birch said Queensland had a better relationship with police than other states but he still highlighted shortcomings.

 "We have a memorandum of understanding with the Queensland Police Service but it would be naive to think that information flow couldn't be improved," he said.

The stipe was scathing when questioning how genuine Betfair was about helping officialdom.

"Do we have the full co-operation of organisations like Betfair? I'm not convinced we do," he said.

"We have the power to request information but it's very rarely provided to us proactively."

Birch cited the long-running Baby Boom inquiry, where the betting trends on the race were highly unusual, but Betfair did not provide any information until approached by stewards.

"If you are genuinely concerned about the integrity of racing with something like that and you're not looking to provide it to the regulator, then there's something wrong in my opinion," he said.

"They say they have live monitoring. If they do, I've never seen the benefit of its existence."

Betfair's director of legal and corporate affairs Josh Blanksby said Betfair was the only wagering operator that actively shared information.

Under its agreement with Racing Queensland there is a requirement to notify stewards of suspicious behaviour.

"The concern that Wade has is that he believes any time there's anything we should just hand it over, but we have to balance our customers' privacy with integrity issues with racing," Blanksby said.

"A lot of times the betting behaviour may be well within the customer's usual parameters and therefore won't appear in our exception reporting.

"We provide live access to stewards, which allows them to look at things live and if they want further information they can put in a request through the portal. Other operators don't provide that.

"It's a requirement for us to proactively (notify stewards) if there is suspicious behaviour.

"We never hide anything."

Betfair has similar arrangements with control bodies in all states.

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