Nothing fishy in missing Brownlow votes

THE AFL has dodged a bullet over its lost Brownlow vote saga, with bookmakers confirming no suspicious betting.

THE AFL has dodged a bullet over its lost Brownlow vote saga, with bookmakers confirming no suspicious betting for the Round 8 Melbourne-West Coast game.

AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou will read out the votes of the game at the Brownlow Medal on Monday night aware the league cannot account for them.

They were lost in a breach of protocol, forcing the league to evaluate and tighten its regulations for Brownlow votes.

A match-day parcel of paperwork delivered to AFL House did not contain the votes, forcing umpires Simon Meredith, Stuart Wenn, and Jacob Mollison to submit them again.

The league refused to comment yesterday on the tightened regulations.

But it did confirm it had reviewed the betting trends on that game, and was confident the votes did not end up leading to an ill-gotten gain.

TAB Sportsbet spokesman Gary Davies said yesterday his firm had carefully scrutinised its bets on the game in the weeks after the AFL's revelation.

Aware punters could gain an unfair advantage, it looked at the probable vote-getters from the contest aware of the ramifications.

"We were wary. We looked back at who was likely to get votes from the game. It could have given someone an advantage, but in the end nothing turned up," he said.

Davies added that the votes must have "disappeared into that big black hole in the sky".

With the various spread and spot bets now available, a punter could gain an advantage from the knowledge, particularly with the most votes per team category.

Herald Sun journalist Glenn McFarlane's votes from the game went to Matt Priddis (five), Dean Cox (four), James McDonald (three), Adam Selwood (two), Matt Rosa (one).

Priddis is a $1.45 favourite to be the West Coast player to win the most Brownlow Medal votes.

The AFL is confident its relationship with corporate bookmakers means it is one of the cleanest sports in the world.

But Demetriou told radio SEN last week that there would be a time when someone tried to match-fix.

"There will be a bookmaker out there, a shonk or a shade, who will think at some point in time they can see some mileage gained from approaching players for information or for a game, but they do so at their peril."