Whalley Red |
11-08-2009 09:24 |
Re: Sky news players charged bury game
Paying £4,500 for a voice recognition test could be either the action of an innocent man or a man afraid of the penalty of being found guilty; I don't think it's conclusive. However, this test was taken because the accumulator was placed over the phone ... that's the bit that concerns me about this saga.
To place a bet over the phone, you need to have an account with the bookie in your own name. That can either be: - a credit account in which there are much tighter checks in place to make sure that it is you that is making the bet (i.e. password, etc.) rather than someone else betting with your money; or
- a debit account in which the details of the debit card (e.g. registered postcode) must correspond with the details on the account, again to make sure that only the account holder is making the bet.
These are much tighter regulations brought in via the 2005 Gambling Act to address the newer modes of gambling and to protect against under-age gambling, in particular.
So that leaves only two real possibilities: either it was Cav making the bet over the phone or someone very close to him who knew all the necessary account/card information. It has been suggested that it was Cav's brother who made the bet over the phone, hence the need for a voice recognition test.
So, Cav's brother can't be arsed to go to a high street bookie or get himself a telephone or internet account with a bookie and instead uses Cav's account (and possibly his debit card), while knowing that it would probably end his brother's football career if the bookie passed on the details of the bet to the Gambling Commission? Is his brother that naive?
Alternatively, Cav did place the bet over the phone, knowing that it was done with an account (and possibly his debit card) in his name, making it extremely difficult to refute. The alternative was to go to any high street bookie and place the bet anonymously via a coupon and it would be virtually impossible to trace the bet back to him. Is Cav that naive?
Is the 'brother' story plausible and Cav completely innocent? Not only would his brother have been unbelievably naive, but his couldn't have hidden it from Cav either. If the bet had won, the winnings would have been in Cav's account and the brother would have needed to tell him at some point that he was owed winnings that were in Cav's name; winnings that could end Cav's playing career. That would be an extremely difficult conservation to start, unless it had happened before (maybe with Cav's agreement, plus there are allegations there had been previous bets placed on League 2 matches) and that makes Cav complicit in this process.
At least one person in the Cav family has been incredulously naive and I'm not surprised that the Gambling Commission found the 'brother' argument difficult to accept.
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