Courtsiding – What Is It & Is It Legal?

As you already likely know, live betting is one of the sports gambling sphere’s most prominent drivers, as it boosts event engagement and leads hordes of fans to fiat and crypto sportsbooks. However, despite how hard we tried to pinpoint the exact period when this gambling option got birthed, we couldn’t come close to locating the precise date. Though, we can tell you that it should fall around the early to mid-2000s, as we remember in-play wagering being a thing in 2005/2006.

The rise of this gambling type is consistent with the global internet penetration expansion and improvements in streaming technology. Those innovations brought new options and allowed operators to offer odds on ongoing events, reflecting shifting circumstances. With the wide worldwide adoption of in-play betting, as expected, gamblers sought to exploit the weakness of this not-yet-perfect online gambling feature. The most famous of these practices gets labeled courtsiding.

What Is Courtsiding?

While TV/streaming broadcasts do a decent job of quickly and audio-visually conveying events happening at some other place on Earth, they cannot do so in actual real-time. There is always a delay, which stems from various factors. The first of these are technical reasons, such as signal processing, quality control checks, and transmission delays due to the necessary distance the signal must cover. On top of these, broadcast suppliers must also strategically implement delays for commercial reasons, purposefully feature delays, giving editors time to cut out potentially offensive or inappropriate content. Furthermore, they get mandated to comply with a wide range of broadcasting regulations. The ones in play here are those that state that super-sensitive material must not reach the masses.

Hence, some gamblers have decided to exploit this delay. Now, a gap of seconds may not sound like much to some. But, if used right, it can supply ample advantage to bettors, particularly in a sport like tennis where the on-court empire must electronically confirm each point. That means that this accounts for another delay concerning match happenings. And, if there is some controversy on the court, then an even longer time gap occurs. The bettors looking to exploit the delay in transmitting information get called courtsiders.

Real-Life Courtsiding Scandals

There have been a few notable courtsiding stories that have made the news. But likely the most popular one of all is the tale of Stanislav Poplavskyy, a Ukrainian tennis player who in 2020 got a lifetime ban for engaging in match-fixing. After getting brought up on chargers for various illegal activities, among which was the transmission of live scoring data to third parties, Poplavskky got a $10,000 fee and a lifetime ban from the sport of tennis by the Tennis Integrity Unit for transgressions made from 2015 to 2019. Poplavskky, who once ranked as high as 440 on the official ATP rankings, admitted his guilt on all charges and accepted his punishment.

In 2016, umpires from Ukraine, Turkey, and Kazakhstan also received penalties for taking bribes to participate in courtsiding. They deliberately delayed score updates up to a minute to give time to gamblers betting on International Tennis Federation Futures Tour games to wager while already knowing the outcome of the point round played.  

In 2019, the BBC ran a documentary about a man named Joe from Sussex, who claimed to have raked in over £300,000 in one year from courtsiding, communication from tennis venues via a Bluetooth headset to a wagering accomplice nearby. According to Joe, he scouted umpires slow to record points and looked to ply his trade by following these tennis referees around to tournaments they would get assigned to, profiting from their tardy nature. Still, in the doc, Joe openly states that he would not dare courtside at the top competitions due to enhanced security and their efficiency in spotting the practice.

How to Courtside

Let us say that a US Open final has gotten reached by Djokovic and Murray. A courtsider will attend this game, sitting in the stands with an online sportsbook loaded on his phone, quickly placing bets before the betting platform’s sportsbook odds provider can update the site’s results and odds.

Many venues consider courtsiding unethical and forbid it. It is dangerous to bet at a venue because one risks getting kicked out if ushers/attendants discover this behavior. So, courtside gamblers look to utilize smartphones or other devices capable of quickly transmitting data to a third party that places the bet for them. For instance, Djokovic wins a point with a powerful serve. The courtsider will swiftly send this information to their betting counterpart. A second after it happens, before the umpire even has time to register it. The betting counterpart will instantly place a bet on Djokovic before the game data even reaches the sportsbook, and it has a chance to update its odds to reflect the latest developments.

As touched upon, courtsiding is often prohibited by sports organizations and gambling operators. Venues and tournaments, in recent times, have implemented measures to detect and prevent this activity. Popular measures include restrictions on electronic device use for anyone viewing the match from the stands.

Is Courtsiding Illegal?

Technically, it is not a criminal offense in most jurisdictions because the people engaging in it are not breaking any laws per se. They may be violating a sports organization’s terms or those of a given bookmaker. But there are no laws that specifically outlaw this practice.

For example, Victoria Police, in 2014, arrested and charged a courtsider at the Australian Open. They went after said gambler under Section 195F of the Victorian Crimes Act 1958, using this law’s part that references competition manipulation-related offenses. Yet, those charges later got dropped. That occurred due to the belief the prosecution had that they had almost no chance of getting a conviction since the better did not manipulate the actual contest.

That said, Players or umpires cannot participate in courtsiding, to any degree, because that does constitute match-fixing, given that they are affecting the flow of the game or its result. Now, that is a criminal offense.

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