PGA Tour brings in comprehensive gambling policy

The PGA Tour has announced it will bring in an ‘Integrity Programme’ to protect its tournaments from outside influences related to gambling.

In a statement released last night, the tour acknowledged that while it has a long-standing policy prohibiting players from betting activities, the new programme is far more comprehensive and will apply to all six tours within the PGA Tour.

It also stretches beyond the players themselves to their support teams, tournament staff and volunteers, and the entire PGA Tour staff.

“The bedrock of PGA Tour competition are the inherent values of golf and the honesty and integrity of our members,” said PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. “We recognise, 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 Programme to further protect our competition from betting-related issues.”

To assist with the implementation of the programme, the PGA Tour has employed London-based Genius Sports, the global leader in sports integrity services, to provide a state-of-the-art bet monitoring system.

This will track real-time betting activity and use algorithms to identify potentially suspicious patterns occurring in global betting markets.

In recent years, the number of different markets available to bet on – particularly at major championships – has increased considerably, with the ability to bet on the best performing player in a marquee group, top five, ten or 20 finishes, and the best performing player from a particular country to name just a few.