Burden Busted For Unethical Snooker Betting In Britain

No one watches Snooker betting on wild excitement (that’s like reading Winward casino reviews expecting Shakespeare) it’s a game of strategy and skill played by professionals with remarkable eye hand coordination and spectacular predictive abilities when it comes to the physics of colliding uniform spheres on a single plane surface under normal gravitational conditions, but snooker players aren’t supposed to actually bet on the sport at all, but alas Alfie Burden did….and then got caught.

Snooker Star Sentenced

• Name – Alfie Burden
• Nationality – British
• Age – 40
• Sport – Snooker
• Crime – Gambling

Being somewhat vertically challenged I never attempt to play snooker betting on anything save that I shall more than likely have to use the rest 60% of the time, however as a sport to view and wager upon at Bet365, and the like, there is something wonderfully restful about the mounting tension and constant display of an almost chess-like necessity to think several moves ahead, which is why those that like to bet on sports in the UK often check out the odds offered by the bookies on this mainstay entertainment.

The World Professional Billiards And Snooker Association, a sports body that could stand a little rebranding if only to lop a few letters off WPBSA, governs the sport with the sort of oversight you’d expect in a sport that grew out of the smokey games room of the aristocracy. There’s little room for cheating so most of the issues arising are those of Snooker betting among those that part of the sport itself and this week another has fallen foul of pretty much the only crime the sport has on offer.

Unlucky Alfie Gambled 25k Producing Losses Of 3k

Alfie Burden originally wanted to be a footballer, a schoolboy apprentice at Arsenal for a couple of seasons, until a seriously broken leg put paid to that ambition after which he demonstrated a skill for snooker and began a career in the sport that saw him qualify for the China Open but at the end of the 2007/8 season he fell off the tour, only to return victorious in the IBSF World Snooker Championship in Hyderabad, India, in 2009 since when he’s had steady form seeing him rise to world No.38.

Alfie Burden’s Punishment

• 6 month ban (suspended)
• Ban ends 1st Jan 2018
• 5,000 GBP fine

Of course anyone in the UK gambling news of his winning a major tournament are just around the corner might be over-estimating the chances of the man from Paddington, but he has shown enough skill around the table to be a regular and known figure in the sport, a sport that has rules about gambling, rule he broke. Admittedly he broke them along time ago, but not only did he do a little snooker betting, he even bet on matches in which he was competing, which just looks bad.

Should Alfie Have Used Bet365 For His Snooker Betting?

Now it should be made clear he only ever backed himself to win. Backing yourself to lose when doing any snooker betting would be ghastly and criminal, whilst backing yourself to win might be against the rules but it at least keeps the spirit of the competition in tact. This was back in 2006 as part of larger accumulator bet he’d placed on a tournament he was in, five matches in all, but he’d used an online entity (probably not Bet365) to bet on around 50 matches over time, and for that the WPPBSA took action.

Chairman Jason Ferguson, WPBSA

WPBSA Chairman Jason Ferguson
• “It is only through his full admissions and his cooperation with the disciplinary committee that he has avoid a career ending suspension.”

Alfie Burden was handed a six month suspended ban for his snooker betting activities, and fined five thousand pounds (a paltry sum to be frank) let off somewhat lightly for immediately and effusively admitting his wrong doing.

UK gambling laws might be clear cut, but the British always have a soft spot for someone who holds their hands up and admits their crime, so this has been far more a slap on the wrists than a massively embarrassing rebuke, and compared the drug abuse in other sports snooker will shrug this off as fast as Burden owned up.