They stood to collect amounts of between $10,000 and $180,000. Further suspicion was generated because of the belief the punters may have been connected to Tomic via one of the player’s closest associates.
Tomic and Quentin Halys in their match in Istanbul in 2021. Halys won 6-0, 6-1.
Across the four bookmakers the types of bets placed included the result on Tomic losing the match, the number of sets in the match, in-play betting on the results on individual games and the number of games Tomic would win in a set.
At least two bookmakers became so suspicious of some bets that they capped winnings for some of the punters. In one instance a potential five-figure win was halved.
In the hours after the January 2022 match, the question Waller and other bookmaking firms was asking was whether the NSW punters had been merely lucky in making what Waller described to this masthead as “unusual” bets, or whether something more sinister had occurred.
Because of his concerns, Waller directed that only some of the winnings be paid out in connection to the suspect punts, while refunding the bets made by those who had gambled on Tomic to win. He also sent his urgent missive to Tennis Australia’s integrity staff.
“It’s fair to say that Tennis Australia took it very seriously,” Waller said on Thursday.
TA’s response would ultimately trigger a chain of events that not only remained hidden from the public until Friday – when this masthead revealed that Tomic had been the target of a major multi-agency police investigation— but unknown to the Australian tennis governing body itself and its chief executive, Craig Tiley, even though it was Tennis Australia that had initially alerted police back in January 2022.
The inside story of the Tomic investigation gives a rare glimpse into the system the tennis world relies on to deal with suspicions of corruption, including the leaking of inside information and match-fixing.
Tomic has never been charged with any offence and there has never been a suggestion by authorities (or this masthead) that he is guilty of any wrongdoing.
But the betting patterns uncovered by Waller and his team along with other corporate bookies were enough to trigger not only an urgent meeting of detectives and senior police from NSW and Victoria but formation of a strike force, a tactic used only when investigators believe they need to deploy specialist capacity and resources to deal with a serious suspected crime.
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That a strike force commanded by counter-organised crime officers was launched to deal with a sports integrity issue marked a major departure from how police would have dealt with a similar case a decade ago.
Typically, strike forces are pulled together to deal with suspected drug trafficking and murder, although NSW police had previously launched a strike force to probe suspected NRL match fixing by an alleged organised crime figure currently on drug trafficking charges. That 2016 strike force was dissolved without any charges.
But over the past 10 years, police in NSW and Victoria have moved to acknowledge the harm caused to sports and the community when betting syndicates seek to corrupt players and participants across a multitude of codes.
Policing interest in sports integrity increased as online betting became more prevalent and the size of global betting markets surged along with the number of events and outcomes a punter can wager on – from picking the winner at Wimbledon to who will win a certain set in a minor tennis game in the back blocks of Asia.
Detectives were assigned to sports integrity teams in the headquarters of both NSW Police and Victoria Police, initially dealing with allegations in the horse-racing industry as well as claims of match fixing in the A-League and lower soccer divisions across the nation.
The creation of a new national anti-corruption agency, Sport Integrity Australia, under the leadership of a highly respected former federal police assistant commissioner, David Sharpe, increased scrutiny further.
Sharpe drove co-operation over state borders between often competitive or hostile police forces and also encouraged sporting governing bodies to recognise their traditional failure to act on integrity issues for fear of a scandal. He argued that approach was causing more damage than good.
Tennis Australia was among the bodies that responded to Sharpe’s call to arms. When it alerted police to the concerns around the betting on the two Tomic matches in mid-January 2022, detectives from NSW and Victoria leapt on the issue, conducting a rapid analysis of betting data and other intelligence.
Tomic in action at this year’s Australian Open during his qualifying match loss.Credit: Getty Images
The NSW Police sports integrity team ran the name of one of the gamblers who had placed a suspect bet on Tomic, uncovering records suggesting he may have hosted a family member of Tomic at an Australian casino 18 months earlier.
State law enforcement sources who briefed this masthead on condition of anonymity said both police forces agreed to call an urgent meeting in Canberra with Sport Integrity Australia to co-ordinate a response.
Queensland police were drafted in to deal with potential searches of properties while the Australian Criminal Intelligence Commission was tasked with searching its extensive intelligence indices for information on the suspect punters. The ACIC also weighed using its coercive question powers to find more information.
The sources said it was agreed that NSW Police would lead a strike force codenamed Whyman to search for evidence.
The International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) was closely consulted by police. It used its contractual powers to seize Tomic’s phone and quiz him, effectively sidelining Tennis Australia from the integrity probe to isolate the investigation from any commercial and publicity pressures faced by TA.
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A Tennis Australia source this week said that move was evidence of the system working.
Sources told this masthead that while the betting on the two Tomic matches was suspicious enough to warrant investigation, detectives could not prove any matches had been fixed. They also failed to find a money trail linking Tomic to the punters. Tomic’s phone also provided no firm evidence.
Detectives from Victoria and NSW debated arresting Tomic at an airport, although ultimately deferred to internal legal advice warning such a move would not be warranted because the evidence gathered did not justify a charge. After several months of intensive investigations, strike force Whyman had stalled and was shut down.
“In the absence of more information, we had to close the inquiry,” a senior NSW police source said this week. “We just didn’t have enough to proceed.”
The ITIA has taken a different approach to state detectives. It sometimes keeps investigations dormant in the hope of finding a fresh lead. The Tomic probe is in such a phase, two sources confirmed this week. To date, the agency has taken no action against Tomic.
As of Friday evening, Tomic has not responded to questions about the investigation. An associate who attended the Australian Open with him last week, when Tomic tried but failed to qualify, said the tennis player had “nothing to say”.
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