Top 10 betting scandals

13:38 09 April 2010

As another year of excitement at the races unfolds, take a look at the darker side of gambling in the underworld of game and race fixing.

There have been numerous horse racing and football scandals over the years, as well as the Hansie Cronje affair in cricket.

Here we take a look at 10 of the most notorious in history:

Hansie Cronje
South African Cronje, 32, was banned for life for match fixing in 2000. He had bartered with a bemused Nasser Hussain to make a game of the rain-ruined Centurion Park Test. His gesture to forfeit an innings was hailed as a PR masterstoke. But a backhander of £5,000 and a leather jacket from a bookie had motivated him. He later died in 2002 in a plane crash.

Fixers
Three Malaysians fronted an illegal Far East gambling syndicate. They targeted Premiership football with a multi-million pound betting scam consisting of lots of strange bets and were jailed for 12 years in 1999. They were caught about to tamper with the floodlights at Charlton Athletic during a Monday night match.

Angel Jacobs
In 1998, amateur jockey Angel Jacobs was unmasked for being an ex-professional. He received a 10-year worldwide ban for the 21 rides he took.

Flockton Grey
Two-year-old racehorse Flockton Grey romped home by 20 lengths at Leicester in 1982 and the bookies had to stump up £200,000 in winning bets. Later investigators discovered the horse was a seasoned three-year-old called Good Hand.

Gay Future
Permit trainer Anthony Collins declared Gay Future to run in a novice hurdle at Cartmel on August Bank Holiday Monday 1974. On the morning of the race, he was backed in doubles and trebles around the country. However, the other two horses that were being bet upon were declared non-runners. All the bets went onto Gay Future who won by 15 lengths at 10-1.

In the Money
This horse won Hatherleigh Selling Handicap Hurdle at Newton Abbot in 1978, by 20 lengths at a well-backed 8-1. However, the horse running in the race was really Cobbler's March, a five-time winner.

Francasal
Francasals 10-1 win in the Spa Selling Stakes at Bath July 1953 was set up as a scam to make five men £1m in bets. The conspirators replaced the moderate French horse Francasal with a better horse called Santa Amaro.

Owls caught
In 1965, ex-England internationals Tony Kay and Peter Swan and their Sheffield Wednesday team-mate David Layne were given life bans, jailed for four months and fined £150 for match fixing.

Running Rein
Lord George Bentinck exposed that this four-year-old horse won the 1844 Derby, a race for three-year-olds only. The case was a landmark in the fight against horse racing corruption.

Bent ref
Robert Hoyzer, 26, was sent to jail for two years and five months in Germany after admitting taking money to award unwarranted free kicks and penalties.

Source: The Mirror