The PGA Tour is getting even more serious when it comes to gambling. On Monday, they announced the implementation of a new Integrity Program effective January 1, 2018, in an effort “to protect its competitions from potential outside influences related to gambling.”
While betting by players has long been prohibited on the pro circuit, the new policy will encompass basically all parties involved with sanctioned tournaments.
According to the official statement released by the Tour, the program’s stated mission is: “To maintain integrity and prevent and mitigate betting-related corruption in PGA Tour competitions—ensuring competitions always reflect, and appear to reflect, the best efforts of the players, while protecting the welfare of the players and others involved with the PGA Tour—through clear policies and regulations, ongoing education and training, and effective and consistent monitoring and enforcement functions.”
The Tour partnered with Genius Sports, a sports data-technology service, to implement the new Integrity Program. One of the main objectives will include their bet monitoring system that tracks betting patterns and can spot suspicious betting trends on events.
I’d wager that players will be talking about this at East Lake. (You know, as long as they don’t…) pic.twitter.com/wsqdCVef3c
— Jason Sobel (@JasonSobelESPN) September 18, 2017
Additionally, the Tour and Genius Sports have also developed an educational program “that will help players, caddies, and officials to identify, resist and report incidents of potential betting corruption.”
“The bedrock of PGA Tour competition are the inherent values of golf and the honesty and integrity of our members,” PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan said. “We recognize, however, that no sport is fully immune from the potential influence of gambling. So, we felt it was important to move forward with an Integrity Program to further protect our competition from betting-related issues. Genius Sports will provide essential support as we roll out the Program across the entire PGA Tour.”
[PGA Tour]
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