FAI to monitor Waterford v Limerick game after some bookmakers close betting

The FAI say they are monitoring the situation around Friday night’s Airtricity League Premier Division game between Waterford and Limerick after several major bookmakers suspended betting on the outcome of the match.

Paddy Power are among those to have confirmed that they had suspended markets on the game, with Ladbrokes and Boylesports among the other companies to cease handling bets on the result.

By this evening more than €165,000 had been matched on Betfair, around 10 times the average for the evening’s other games here. Across the whole betting market, around 90 per cent of the money is reported to have been placed on Limerick, who have won just one of their last eight league games and have been widely expected to rest players in Waterford ahead of their first playoff game against Finn Harps on Monday.

There were various claims on social media about what was behind the money that was going onto Limerick. But the effect was clear, with those bookmakers who were still offering a price on them winning the game having shortened it dramatically over the course of the day.

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In the event that Limerick do win, the FAI seems certain to launch an investigation, although the sums of money that are reported to have been placed on them so far are still far short of the amounts involved in the May 2017 game between Longford and Athlone that resulted in two players being suspended for a year after being found guilty of match-fixing.