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The Italian job, Albinoleffe - Piacenza


Just 5 days before Christmas bookies worldwide took a serious knock paying out millions on highly suspicious 3-3 draw between Albinoleffe and Piacenza, Italian Serie B. Pre-game and in-play action on Monday involved activity which the common used official term "irregular betting patterns" can't describe even at half extent.

Bookmakers were shocked on Sunday late afternoon taking in short period of time unusual big number of bets on draw slashing the odds from average 2.90 to 2.50 before deciding to pull out of the market and block the game on time.

On Monday Asian firms and UK giants bet365, Ladbrokes and William Hill came back with heavily shortened odds at 1.50 just to see another flow of money going for the draw that reached price around 1.40 at kick-off. Betfair (see chart) kept busy trading bets and reaching volume of 5,000,000 EUR placed on draw, far not typical for a second-tier game.

Goals scored throughout the game had zero impact on the odds accoring to Betfair's tracking, draw keeping priced at 1.40 even with Piacenza leading 2-1 at halftime...