All British athletes who compete at London 2012 will be banned from putting on any bets, British Olympic Association chairman Lord Moynihan has stated.
All 550 British competitors in London will have to sign a team members' agreement about behaviour, part of which will involve the ban on betting.
The decision is aimed to combat the threat of illegal betting, with the range of bets available meaning money could be made from an athlete who deliberately performs poorly as well as on successful results.
All 205 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) are being told what is expected of their athletes and urged to educate them about preferred behaviour with regards to betting.
"It is in the interest of every athlete to know where they stand on this," Lord Moynihan said.
Message
"The message was very clear from Lausanne (the International Olympic Committee's base) that every one of the Chef de Missions (team managers) and every one of the NOCs coming to London needed to have in place clarity as to the rules and a good educational programme for their athletes."
Talks will be held with betting operators and the Gambling Commission before the Games, but Olympics minister Hugh Robertson believes it will be hard to assess how spot betting will affect the Games.
"At the moment it is perfectly legal to spot bet on all sorts of sports," Robertson said.
"It is fair to say that up to this point illegal betting has not been a huge problem at the Olympics but then it is extremely difficult to make a workable comparison of that when the last Olympic Games were in Beijing.
"This is a new threat. It is an evolving threat. The President of the IOC has identified it as a very serious threat. I think we are slightly waiting to see how this plays out in London 2012."
Lord Moynihan believes the starting point in dealing with the issue is that information such as suspicious betting patterns must be given to the Chef de Mission of that team.
He said: "The position of a National Olympic Committee is to protect and look after the interests of the athletes.
"If there was that information available and it never became known until after the Games and in a press splash, I would have very significant reservations."
Lord Moynihan also argued that the sports authorities must sit down with the betting companies to discuss the types of bets that are on offer.
He said: "The potential for corrupt activity is greater with some bets than others. The bookmakers should sit down with sports administrators and discuss this.
"When we looked at the definition of betting, we did not feel it was as clear as we would like it to be under the 2005 Gambling Act.
"It is in part the breadth of different bets which exist now but did not exist 10 years ago."
