Tennis chiefs revealed Thursday that “angry gamblers” accounted for almost half of abusive social media posts targeting top tennis stars.
The AI-led Threat Matrix, launched by the ITF, WTA, Wimbledon and the US Open, analysed nearly 2.5 million posts on X, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and TikTok between January and October this year.
From that number, “around 12,000” abusive messages were identified.
The four governing bodies said that “angry gamblers”, who bet on matches and vent their frustration on social networks when their bets fail, represented 48% of abusive messages detected in 2024.
“An increased volume of abusive content was observed during the Grand Slam tournaments”, which allow their authors to enjoy greater “visibility” given “the interest” sparked by tennis during these two-week long events.
“The identities of 15 highly abusive account authors have been passed to national law enforcement for action,” said the report.
“Abusers should be under no illusion – we will pursue criminal prosecution where we can, …