MANCHESTER, April 17 Badminton has followed the example of tennis by attempting a crackdown on unlawful betting, which may be on the increase.

Tour insiders suggest that this kind of corruption may have become more prevalent, especially in tournaments where several players from one country compete in the same event.

Tennis has improved its competitive climate by acquiring knowledge of suspicious betting patterns; badminton now sees its second most influential continental organisation seeking something similar.

This has brought a “memorandum of understanding” between the European Sports Security Association (ESSA) and Badminton Europe, which runs its own continental circuit with 28 tournaments and about 40 competing countries.

The continental governing body has stated that it is working with ESSA to “help maintain the highest levels of integrity” within the sport.

The understanding means that the ESSA will be using an early warning system to monitor betting activity in all Badminton Europe circuit matches and to report irregular patterns and examples of possible insider betting.

“ESSA's early warning system is a recognised leader when it comes to identifying, tracking and tracing suspicious betting behaviour,” claimed Khalid Ali, ESSA's Secretary General, adding that it would be used to “help protect one of our most important sports from corruption”.

According to sources close to the European game, the throwing of matches for money is neither commonplace nor evident. Betting on side issues, such as which players reaches five points first in the recently installed 21-up scoring system, has allegedly spread.—AFP