Last week, Italian player Lucrezia Stefanini revealed that she received death threats and threats to her family if she didn’t throw her BNP Paribas Open qualifying match against Victoria Jimenez Kasintseva. Stefanini disclosed this prior to her match — but as you might expect, she still lost, presumably distracted by the fact that her virtual assailant knew where her family lived and other terrifying personal information.
Think about the position it put Stefanini in. Through no fault of her own, she had to choose between possibly putting herself or her family in harm’s way or running the risk of a fine or ban from the WTA if she was too scared not to comply. To call it unacceptable is understating the matter. It’s tragic.
Tennis is a particularly vulnerable sport. In team sporting events, going after one player or even multiple players is no guarantee of the desired outcome — because there are other members of the team that can score goals, shoot baskets, or hit home runs. A tennis player is a single source of impact. Extortion, successfully executed, is pretty much a guarantee of success.
Listen. Sports betting isn’t new; it’s been legal in Europe for decades. And what happened to Stefanini is unfortunately not unique. Any time there’s money on the line and a feasible way to manipulate an outcome, the more sinister parts of society are going to try it.
Many years ago, there was an uncorroborated but widely circulated rumor that a top player was the subject of severe extortion by an organized crime syndicate. To throw matches. Under threat of death. If the rumor is to be believed, these were not empty threats made by “angry gamblers.” Because organized crime syndicates don’t make empty threats.
But sports gambling is far more widespread now than it was even in the early naughts. Which means that the volume of the “sinister parts of society” is increasing. I’ll give credit to both the ATP and WTA. They’re trying to combat it. Security measures such as scanning social media using AI monitoring and the automatic removal of toxic or threatening messages have been implemented in an effort to shield players before they ever see them.
Major U.S. betting companies such as Fan Duel and BetMGM are partnering with professional sporting organizations by permanently banning any punters found to have engaged in threats or athlete intimidation. But I fear that all of these things are not enough. Social media gives the general public unprecedented access to athletes. You don’t have to show up in person at the practice court or at the player’s house. You can just find them on WhatsApp.
I recognize that sports betting offers some benefits. It increases interest in tennis and generally circulates more money around. But it also introduces a toxic element that has no place in professional athletics. The ITF, ATP, and WTA are going to need to keep working to combat the athlete intimidation scourge with technology, better partnerships with betting companies, and the use of law enforcement when necessary.
thoughts?
I think all this is awful. Everywhere there’s money there’s corruption. Another excellent piece, Cheryl. The only thing I disagree with is that I don’t see any social upside to betting, and so many down sides, including the issue of intimidation of sports people by people trying to make betting money.
I really like tennis as a sport for people to play and even just watch. But there’s many things about tennis, and spectator sport in general, that make me intensely uncomfortable, and most of those are connected to the money side, and the way sport is used to normalise aspects of the dominant culture that are deeply dysfunctional.
Totally in w/ SC.
Of course, I’m an old-fart lifelong non-bettor.
I don’t even understand the terminology.