There are several sports that gained some attention during the coronavirus shutdown. Without popular sports to bet on, regular sports bettors in New Jersey had to turn to things like Ukrainian table tennis.
Sportsbooks across the country had hundreds of thousands of dollars placed on table tennis during the coronavirus pandemic. Not a huge number, but bigger than most people would think.
However, it’s good that other sports are coming back because it is no longer going to be available in New Jersey.
Corruption Concerns
Of all the sports to be in the headlines for corruption concerns, Ukrainian table tennis might be the last possible things to come to mind. But here we are.
New Jersey’s Division of Gaming Enforcement informed operators that they could no longer accept bets on the matches. The governing body of the sport could not confirm that the matches were clear of any corruption.
“While there is not yet any evidence that any match-fixing occurred in New Jersey, due the nature of the alert, the Division is suspending approval for wagering on all table tennis events in the Ukraine, including but not limited to the Setka Cup, WIN Cup, and TT Cup,” the notice provided to sportsbooks said.
ESPN was the first to report the notion that some players were possibly fixing matches. This got the attention of Indiana first, who also took down Ukrainian table tennis from sportsbooks.
Six players were accused of being involved in fixing matches. These players were Liliia Zaitseva, Ivan Gaysin, Karen Dzhanibekyan, Eduard Panichev, Anastasia Efimova, and Gleb Zotov.
Biggest Players in the Market
This largely only effects FanDuel, DraftKings, and PointsBet in New Jersey. This has been a profitable sport for them during COVID-19.
“DraftKings works closely with the industry to monitor available data for any irregular activity and where appropriate reports it promptly to regulators and sports integrity agencies like SWIMA (Sports Wagering Integrity Monitoring Association) and IBIA (International Betting Integrity Association),” a company spokesman said.
“In regard to Ukrainian table tennis leagues, we fully cooperated with the investigation conducted by SWIMA and did not see any irregularity on our platform.”
There was discussion to only remove those players involved; however, it turns out they just took it down altogether.
“There was talk of corrupt players, and in most situations, they would just pull those guys off, but, out of an abundance of caution, I guess, they just figured they would pull the whole market down,” a source said.
FanDuel, DraftKings, and PointsBet all reported back to SWIMA and said they didn’t see any irregularities. But the state of New Jersey still decided to pull it from sportsbooks.
For the people of New Jersey, at least it looks like sports are returning here soon. Golf is back in action, along with the UFC, while the NBA and MLB are close to their return date.
The days of betting table tennis to fill the void are over for now.