The US Open tennis tournament officials decided to take extra precautions this year by adding a Web filtering system to the network supporting the event. The Open provides network access to the players, guests and media at the event and wanted to be sure no one was able to access any online gambling websites while at the Billie Jean Tennis Center at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, New York.

The US Tennis Association enlisted the help of St. Bernard Software iPrism Web Filter which according to the Association was easy to install and allows flexibility in reporting, it was used at both the US Open and the US Tennis Association headquarters.

The Association found that there were 17,000 attempts to access online gambling website during the two week tennis event. The software allowed the Association to determine this information.

Larry Bonfante is the CIO of the US Tennis Association and he commented that the sport of tennis is considered to be clean and “above board” so filtering out the gambling site access only helps to maintain that image.

The Association has decided to block online gambling sites every year at the event, which is attended by almost three quarter of a million people each year.


- 2008-12-08