SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The English Football Association (FA) and the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) are investigating Sutton United reserve goalkeeper Wayne Shaw for breaching football betting rules during yesterday’s FA Cup Fifth Round match against Arsenal FC.
Before the match, which was broadcast on BBC1, new UK bookmaker Sun Bets had offered an 8/1 price on ‘Wayne Shaw to eat a pie live on air’. In the 86th minute of the game, Shaw obliged – being filmed eating a match pie.
Shaw whose match day antics have now gone viral, may have landed himself, Sutton United and Sun Bets in hot water, as the FA does not allow registered players to bet “either directly or indirectly, on any football match or competition that takes place anywhere in the world.”
The Sutton reserve goalkeeper has so far stated that neither himself or his teammates had placed the 8/1 pie wager with the bookmaker. The 23-stone goalkeeper states that his antics were simply ‘a bit of banter’.
The episode is likely to cause embarrassment to Sun Bets marketing, who had secured a ‘one-off’ sponsorship of Sutton United and its football ground for the televised FA Cup game.
This morning, UKGC Enforcement & Intelligence Director Richard Watson stated that the authority would not take the incident lightly. “Integrity in sport is not a joke and we have opened an investigation to establish exactly what happened.
“As part of that we’ll be looking into any irregularity in the betting market and establishing whether the operator has met its licence requirement to conduct its business with integrity.”
At present, Sun Bets management has made no official comment on the matter. However, the bookmaker made the following tweet referencing a ‘five-figure’ pay-out on Shaw’s munch.
COST US A BELLY FULL: We’ve paid out a five-figure sum after @WayneShaw70 finishes his pie with glory! #YouBetcha #FACup pic.twitter.com/XrBCL3psOZ
— Sun Bets (@SunBets) February 20, 2017
