HAMILTON, SCOTLAND - JANUARY 28: Head of Referee Operations Willie Collum during a William Hill Championship match between Hamilton Academical and Raith Rovers at the ZLX Stadium, on January 28, 2025, in Hamilton, Scotland. (Photo by Roddy Scott/SNS Group via Getty Images)
In-play betting has been suspended for Sunday’s match between Auchinleck Talbot and Celtic.
Normally bookmakers will offer odds on corners, free kicks, booking, red cards and a variety of other incidents with punters keen to try and get one over on the oddsmakers.
AUCHINLECK ISSUES
A fairly routine pattern of bets can be anticipated. Anything else rings alarm bells. It seems that situation was triggered at some point this afternoon.
Tonight The Sun reports:
BOOKIES have suspended in-play betting ahead of Sunday’s Scottish Cup clash between Auchinleck Talbot and Celtic amid fears of rogue activity.
Top gambling sites including Bet365, Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and Sky Bet pulled odds on red and yellow cards after rumours of suspicious activity began circulating online.
Punters had previously been able to bet on players being booked or sent off before the shock allegations emerged.
A source said: “There was a lot of money being placed on players receiving bookings and the bets all came in over a short period.
“That obviously raises alarm bells.
“Existing bets were cancelled and no in-play bets were available from early Friday afternoon.
“It’s obvious the bookies suspect something is amiss.”
Screen shots from WhatsApp chat among Talbot players have been circulating online.
The betting incident casts a shadow over the match which is the highest profile in the history of the Ayrshire club.
Players throughout football are regularly reminded that the are forbidden from betting of any kind involving football.
It might seem harsh not to be allowed to bet on matches in the Champions League or La Liga but betting on yourself to be booked or sent off is a very different matter
Auchinleck play in the West of Scotland League which is below the Lowland League in the pyramid although it contains far stronger clubs.
They are sitting second in the West of Scotland League, two points behind leaders Troon with two games in hand.
Clydebank won promotion to the Lowland League last season and or on course for a play-off place to reach the SPFL.
With tonight’s revelations manager Tommy Sloan may be forced into making a number of changes to his team plans.
Why do the bookies not pull bets on
Penalties in rangers games?
Red cards in rangers games?
I personally have made a vast profit on these.
But they don’t
The bookies know tho, the odds are amended accordingly, a pen in a sevco game is way shorter odds than any other club and Tav to score, a defender, which in any other game would be minimum 5/1 or higher, is often 7/4 or lower.
Worryingly if they’re betting on getting a red card are they going to try and wipe a player or 2 out with a bad tackle and put him out for the rest of the season or worse.
As we all know Ayrshire isn’t renowned for being a big celtic supporting area
Virtually all of the ‘inexplicable mistakes’ we see are,in my opinion,gambling related.
There’s no such thing as inexplicable really…just an unwillingness to look for and find the reason. Is Scottish football straight? Not a fucking chance,and it’s not just innate bias.
Bookings will only happen to Auckenleck late on…
And they’ll need to behead a Celtic player to even get booked !
These characters have nothing to lose, this looks like the Auchinleck players or someone are/is planning a bloodbath. Celtic have to be careful and if they get out of order we should get on that pitch and give them them it back. I’m sick of getting f***** about by huns, it never happened in my day, time we gave them it back, we’ve got nothing else to look forward to with this board.
Talbot fans are predominantly huns and hate Celtic nearly as much as they hate Cumnock.
I expect blood and snotters tomorrow.
It certainly won’t be pretty.
Couple of Talbot players on the radio this morning, weirdly not one single question about possible match fixing?
It was all “ we hope you win” patter.