The Football Association is looking into a yellow card received by an Arsenal player in a Premier League fixture this season, amid concerns over suspicious betting patterns.
It is understood that bookmakers flagged to the FA an unusual amount of money placed on the Arsenal player being shown a yellow card during a Premier League game this season.
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The FA told The Athletic: “The FA is aware of the matter in question and is looking into it.”
The Athletic knows the identity of the player in question but has agreed not to reveal it at this time due to legal reasons.
Multiple gambling industry insiders have told The Athletic that the pattern of betting surrounding the player being shown a yellow card during the match was highly unusual.
Betting on the minutiae of sporting events — such as bookings, corners or throw-ins — is a type of gambling known as “spot betting”.
Regular betting during football matches sees people wager on an overall outcome — i.e. the winner of a game.
Spot betting, however, involves individual outcomes and poses more of an issue to governing bodies, because a single individual can decide the outcome of a market by, for example, conceding a corner in a particular 10-minute interval.
This can turn a seemingly trivial incident into a moment worth tens of thousands of pounds.
Although spot fixing is considered a significant problem in football leagues around the world, in the Premier League it is thought to be very rare, because players are paid so much money.
Perhaps the most high-profile incident of attempted spot betting manipulation in English football involves the former Southampton and England player Matt Le Tissier, who said in his autobiography that he had tried to “make a few quid on the time of the first throw-in”.
Le Tissier tried to kick the ball out of play as he looked to profit on a prediction of the first throw in being after 70 seconds.
His team-mate stopped the ball going out of play, however.
The matter was referred to Hampshire police after the revelations were published although an investigation was not launched because the force decided it “would not be in the public interest and (did) not represent appropriate use of police resources”.
Defender Bradley Wood was meanwhile banned for six years in 2018 after intentionally picking up yellow cards in Lincoln City’s cup run.
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