Police in New South Wales (NSW) arrested two men on charges that they were betting on the outcome of the National Rugby League’s Daily M Medal Awards using insider information. 29-year-old Joshua Wilson and 31-year-old Ben Trevisiol were both taken into custody after a police investigation found evidence that the two used information gleaned from their role in calculating the outcome of awards they already knew the winners of to place wagers that paid up to $10,000.
Both men worked at a sports technology company called StatEdge that was contracted by the NRL to tally the votes from judges in the awards. The two then allegedly began betting on the outcome of the Coach of the Year category. Their wagers raised red flags with bookmakers, who took their suspicions that something wasn’t right to the NSW Police, who put their Casino and Racing Investigation Unit on the case.
After investigating the situation, NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Stuart Smith found enough evidence to take the two men into custody. It’s clear from remarks Smith made in the Sydney Morning Herald, that police are taking the situation very seriously. “The integrity of the NRL competition is paramount to the NSW Police,” he said, “It is not indifferent to what we see in organised crime criminal syndicates that look to gain an advantage. They look towards a particular event that is not of particular interest in terms of the payout in terms of it.”
If convicted on the rigged betting charges, the two men face up to ten years in prison.