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Author Time: 03-02-2008 Source: AFP
The French Tennis Federation (FFT) said Friday it wants to ban online betting during the French Open. FFT director general Jean-Francois Vilotte said that the organisation had already launched proceedings against “a certain number” of betting sites and was pressing on with test cases in Belgium to determine how to proceed further in tackling a “phenomenon which knows no borders.”
Vilotte told AFP the FFT is determined to stop betting sites piggybacking on official Roland Garros sites. French Open turnover at the tournament itself across the fortnight comes at an estimated 10 million euros. Vilotte said that the organisation had found punters had placed between 500,000 million and one billion euros of bets across some 140 sites - “sometimes on elements of no sporting interest” such as the length of a set.
The FFT is wary at a time when players, including Italians Potito Starace and Daniele Bracciali, are serving bans for betting on matches.
The ATP, the governing body of the men’s game, found that an investigation, launched in August 2007, found 26-year-old Starace had bet on matches during a period from February 2006 to May 2006.
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