"The governing bodies have looked into what happened and uniformly said stop what you’re doing, but you haven’t done anything wrong."
/I've intentionally ignored the stories of the gambling accusations leveled against Ted Forstmann since it sounded like a frivolous lawsuit and blackmail attempt. Yet in this interview with Darren Rovell, I couldn't help but find his answer strange.
Darren: We can’t finish this interview without talking to you about the recent stories about you and gambling. You acknowledged to betting $40,000 on your client Roger Federer to win the 2007 French Open and, at least according to a lawsuit against you, there’s other evidence you bet on other sports that IMG has a big interest in, including college basketball. Both the ATP and the NCAA have said you did nothing wrong. What do you have to say about this?
Forstmann: I’m essentially a target of a guy who is trying to get money from me. Many of his facts are not right. I did place bets. Very modest bets. I’m not a big gambler. If I showed up in Vegas, they wouldn’t even pay for my wine. The direction some media members have taken with the betting on my own clients, that’s garbage. The governing bodies have looked into what happened and uniformly said stop what you’re doing, but you haven’t done anything wrong. I placed my last bet almost four years ago. We’ve instituted a no-betting policy at IMG – we’re not even doing office pools. Every Sunday in the New York Times you can see the spreads and the picks. The New York Post has them every single day. So what are we talking about here?
It had been reported that the suit makes some interesting claims regarding Forstmann and Tiger Woods, an IMG client.