John Coates (pictured), the President of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), revealed the zero-tolerance approach that would be adopted during the organisation's annual meeting in Sydney today.

"If the AOC team membership agreements do not already make it clear that being involved in betting or gambling on the Games or providing inside information is conduct we will not tolerate, they will now," Coates said.

"The 2012 team membership agreement is being updated to make not only betting by athletes and officials an offence but also that of disclosing any confidential information to third parties.

"Team members must also agree that the AOC can collect information on them related to such activities, and provide this information to law enforcement agencies.

"It will be very clear to them that we will not tolerate any betting during the Olympic Games.

"The toughest penalty is you will go home or be dropped from the team.

"We have the ability to call back any financial assistance they've been given."

Betting was recently described by International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge as the biggest threat to world sport.

It is a position that Coates, who is also a member of the IOC's ruling Executive Committee, clearly agrees with.

"The evidence world-wide now is that illegal betting is on the significant increase," he said.

"I think $140 billion (£92 billion) of illegal betting in 2010, the year of the [FIFA] World Cup, the IOC, as an Olympic Movement, has recognised it has to do something to protect the integrity of sport."

Coates said he had been lobbying Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard to establish an independent national sports betting authority that is able to investigate cheating and fraudulent conduct.

He said ideally the agency would be able to "name and shame" athletes, and have the powers to investigate financial and telephone records, while also establishing minimum sentences for offences.

Australia's Sports Minister Mark Arbib said a possible sentence for anyone caught match-fixing would be 10-years imprisonment.

"We can't put our heads in the sand, we must act and we must act soon," Arbib said.

"This is a very serious crime and there are large sums of money involved internationally.

"We need to send a strong message to those people who are involved in match fixing [and] those people involved in illegal gambling that Government will act.

"We will act together with the sports and the betting agencies and we are going to take the toughest stance possible."

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