Marco Penge banned for betting on golf: "I genuinely thought it was ok"

Imago

Professional golfer Marco Penge has admitted to breaking integrity policies regarding betting but also confessed that he wasn’t aware of the policies when he made the bets at the time. The 26-year-old has since been fined and has been given a ban and suspension.

As punishment, the DP World Tour has officially announced that Penge has been handed a three-month ban from playing golf, with one month suspended for a period of 12 months; pending further breaches. He was also fined £2,000.

The Tour explained: "Penge did not bet on himself or on the progress of tournaments during days when he was participating, leading the panel to find that the integrity of such events had not been compromised.

"The disciplinary panel found that Penge's immediate admission of breach and co-operation throughout the investigation warranted mitigation reflected in the eventual sanction imposed."

Penge, who has two professional wins on the Challenge Tour in 2023, was officially suspended on 13 December 2024 and can return to participating in the DP World Tour from 13 February 2025.

The integrity regulation that he breached was found to be regulation 3(a)(i), which states: "No covered person shall either directly or indirectly bet or instruct any other person to bet on the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of any professional or elite amateur golf event anywhere in the world."

Penge has since released a statement admitting that he wasn’t clued up on the integrity rules and that he thought as long as he didn’t bet on himself that it would be ok. He took to social media to defend himself stating: 

"Back in April 2024 the Tour were informed by a betting agency that I had placed some bets on golf from 2022, with an overall average stake of £24 and total profit of £250, 68% of the bets I placed were before I took the integrity programme education course in March 2023.

"All of my bets were positive bets (meaning betting on someone to win rather than lose) and a majority of them were in the majors and Ryder Cup. My bets were all for entertainment purposes to make watching golf more fun.”

He went on to state that he has fully cooperated with the tour to make sure their investigation went smoothly. 

Penge continued: "I genuinely thought it was ok to bet on golf as long as it wasn't on myself or tournaments I was competing in. After I had found out that I had breached the rules and revisited the integrity policy at greater depth, it was only then that I realised this wasn't the case."