The Telegraph reports the the UK alone will gamble £25 million, world wide the figure could be four times that. The Beijing Olympics are the first games to ban athletes from gambling.

A management consultant Tim Payton, said gambling at the Olympics could be a bigger problem than doping.

He said: “As the opportunities to bet on sport grows worldwide, governments and athletes will have to work as hard to keep the threat of corruption out of sport as they have with doping in the last 20 years.”