Match Fixing in Snooker
In his blog, L A Odicean writes that snooker (and golf) are the easiest sports to fix. Both are individual sports often gambled upon and in both of them missing a shot does not have to look that obvious. But unlike golf players who’ve been practicing their sports on green grass among white collars, the natural habitats of snooker players are smoky billiards parlor swarming with dubious characters.
Statistically, there have been more cases of match fixtures in group sports such as basketball and football than in snooker. All through the history of snooker, only few cases of match fixing have been investigated and led to the guilty conclusion.
Most recently, the 2007-8 Malta Cup was investigated by the UK Gambling Commission after local bookmakers informed them on unusual betting patterns during the snooker tournament (which ended, by the way with Shaun Murphy 9-3 triumph over Ken Doherty. The announcement on the suspected fixed match were released in mid February, about a week after the Malta Cup final match); no news since then.
In the farther past, two cases of match fixing in snooker resulted in the players ban. In 2006, Australian snooker player Quinten Hann was found guilty of deliberately losing to Ken Doherty at the 2005 China Open for unheard of amounts of money. Despite his denial, he was banned from playing snooker (or any other game of billiards) for 8 years and was fined £10,000.
(At this point, it might be appropriate to remark that fixing the China Open snooker match wasn’t the first encounter bad boy Hann had with the law).
South African player Peter Francisco was banned for 5 years after found fixing a match against Jimmy White at the 1995 World Championship. The unexpected number of bets put on the outcome 10-2 to Jimmy White added to the fact that it was the final score of the match led the World Snooker Association to investigate the case and to eventually find him guilty of fixing the snooker match.