Genius Sports lands integrity deal with golf’s LPGA
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) has agreed a partnership with Genius Sports to develop a comprehensive integrity program to help protect its competitions and players from match-fixing.
Genius Sports will track global betting activity for all LPGA Tour and Symetra Tour events and highlight any potentially suspicious patterns across domestic and international betting markets.
The LPGA will also work with Genius Sports to develop a tailored educational program to help players, caddies and officials to identify, resist and report incidents of potential betting-related corruption.
Educational workshops will reinforce current LPGA rules regarding betting and also highlight potential consequences, while custom-made e-learning modules will be made available on a global basis to all LPGA and Symetra Tour players in a number of different languages.
The LPGA and Genius marked the start of the new partnership by hosting the first educational workshop for LPGA Tour players competing in this week’s Meijer LPGA Classic for Simply Give in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the US.
“Sports betting is certainly coming and we’ll have to get our hands around it, so we are very excited to establish an integrity strategy in partnership with Genius Sports,” LPGA commissioner Mike Whan said.
“In this partnership, we will educate our players, protect our sport, and ensure our competition is guarded against any corrupting influences. Sports betting may bring another wave of worldwide sports fans to the LPGA, but it will require us to be protected and supported by experts like Genius Sports.”
Ben Paterson, integrity operations director at Genius Sports, added: “With the growing focus on why sports integrity matters, the LPGA Tour has taken proactive steps to effectively safeguard its tournaments, members and reputation.
“We are proud to be appointed as their official integrity partner and look forward to working with them to implement market-leading systems and measures that will provide long-term protection and visibility.”
Genius Sports is currently working with the PGA Tour, the men’s equivalent of the LPGA, on an integrity program, while the supplier also has partnerships in place with the likes of basketball’s NBA and the Nascar stock car racing series.