Darts star slapped with 11-year ban for match fixing after admitting to 88 bets

Daily Record

30-04-2025

Darts player Andy Jenkins has received a substantial 11-year suspension for match-fixing and been ordered to pay a fine of £17,580. Jenkins, 54, was convicted by a Darts Regulation Authority (DRA) disciplinary committee.
He was found to have manipulated the outcome of 12 MODUS Super Series games that took place between 22 February 2022 and 5 July 2023. Jenkins was also punished for leaking information to those placing bets.
While Jenkins contested the allegations of match-fixing, he confirmed that he had made 88 bets on contests using an account of his own. His ban has been retroactively applied starting from November 2023.
This will bar him from participating in or engaging with any events operated by the DRA until November 15, 2034. Jenkins' best triumph on the oche was reaching the semi-finals of the PDC World Championship in 2007.
He went on to lose to eventual champion Raymond van Barneveld. Jenkins, who boasts 15 career titles, has been given until May 6, 2025 to challenge the ruling.
John Pierce, the Gambling Commission's director of enforcement, said: "This case sends a strong and unequivocal message to all sportspeople.
"If you fix matches, you are likely to be caught and face serious consequences. Betting customers in Britain deserve confidence that the markets they engage with are fair and free from corruption.
"Our sports betting intelligence unit will continue to work closely with partners such as the Darts Regulation Authority to identify and prevent match-fixing."
Jenkins is the latest player to be punished for match-fixing. English-Indian darts star Prakash Jiwa was recently found guilty of fixing four games and betting on the outcomes of others.
After an investigation assisted by The Gambling Commission's Sports Betting Intelligence Unit, he was banned from competing in tournaments for eight years. As well as being banned until November 6, 2031, he was also ordered to pay a fine of £17,741.46.
After that specific investigation, it was determined that no other players investigated within it were guilty of any offences. Another case was former young darts prodigy Leighton Bennett.
The 19-year-old was found guilty of ten different breaches of the rules, which took place across four matches. He was punished with a huge eight-year ban by the DRA, who also went on to hand him a fine of £8,100.
Bennett started being investigated after suspicious betting patterns in his matches between September 6 and September 9, 2023, were spotted. One of his matches was a clash against Ryan Harrington in a MODUS Super Series event in 2023, which saw him wildly miss some doubles and even miss the board entirely.