Inside the Shadowy World of High-Speed Tennis Betting

Daniel Dobson was arrested in January for using his cellphone to broadcast the outcome of the tennis match he was watching. He was working for Sporting Data Ltd. in Melbourne. The company dropped courtsiding from its portfolio. Steve High is now speaking freely about courtsiders. Richard Coughlan is also talking about his courtsider job. A book on the topic is being published this week. It describes careers that parallel those of tennis players.

Tennis has an uneasy relationship with gambling. In 2007, the sport was roiled by a high-profile incident of irregular betting involving top-10 player Nikolay Davydenko. The Tennis Integrity Unit standardized rules on betting. Tennis bans courtsiders to protect the game's integrity. In 2011, men's and women's tours made a deal to sell their scores through a company called Enetpulse. Many of the buyers are sports-gambling websites that provide the scores for in-play betting after play has begun. Scott Ferguson, a betting-industry consultant, rejects this logic.

Both sides in tennis betting are affected by the nature of tennis scoring data. After each point, the outcome is entered into computers, which transmit the scores to fans and bettors around the world. There can be electronic delay in the data they transmit. Courtsiders are courtside and they can transmit their score directly into the servers their employers use to place bets. The servers contain software that models the outcomes of the match and places bets based on its calculated probability. The advanced courtsider might make calculated risks to gain a betting edge. He used to be an active courtsiders for 18 months, through last summer’s U.S. Open.

Daniel Dobson was arrested on suspicion of betting fraud. His company, Sporting Data, was accused of being involved in the scam. The company was cleared of all charges. The Australian Open runs by Tennis Australia. Tennis spokeswoman refused to answer questions about the case. Police said the arrest should not be seen as an invitation to attend the Australian open next year. It was not. High is proud of his company's increasing competitiveness in tennis betting. He says it went from being slow and having no model to operating on Wimbledon final. After Dobton's arrest, the company endured intense media coverage.