PGA Tour hires London firm to monitor betting activity

ATLANTA: The PGA Tour said it will implement a more comprehensive gambling policy from 2018 to monitor global betting markets for any irregular activity.

Betting by players on PGA Tour events is already prohibited but the new Integrity Programme will extend to virtually anyone related to tournaments, including players and their support teams, all tournament staff and volunteers.

As part of the policy, the PGA Tour partnered with Londonbased Genius Sports, a leader in sports integrity services who will track real- time betting activity and identify potentially suspicious patterns occurring in global betting markets.

“The bedrock of PGA Tour competition are the inherent values of golf and the honesty and integrity of our members,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement on Monday.

“We recognise, however, that no sport is fully immune from the potential influence of gambling. So, we felt it was important to move forward with an Integrity Programme to further protect our competition from betting-related issues.”

The Integrity Programme will cover all facets of competition and operations on the six Tours overseen by the PGA Tour.

The PGA Tour also said it worked with Genius Sports to develop an educational programme that will help players, caddies and officials identify, resist and report incidents of potential betting corruption.