The AFL is investigating a series of recent plunges on exotic bets with fears that clubs may be leaking sensitive information.
News Limited newspapers say there are suspicions that positional selections, such as regular full-backs starting as forwards, have leaked out of clubs.
Bookmakers are concerned about plunges on bets such as first goalkicker, where inside information can be used by punters to win huge amounts of money.
The AFL has confirmed that irregularities had been looked at by integrity officer Brett Clothier and the league has urged the Federal Government to make cheating in sport a crime, punishable by up to 10 years' jail.
Ratten told a press conference he would take a very dim view if he felt any type of insider information was leaking out of the Blues' camp.
"I'd be pretty disappointed if people are (passing on information about Carlton's tactics) and if they are and I find out, they won't be at our football club," Ratten said.
"Yeah I would (sack them).
"From a player's point of view, you'd have to actually look at the evidence before you just react.
"It would be taken extremely seriously and I wouldn't like to be put in that position if I was the player because I don't think it would come out favourably.
"From a staff (point of view), to be involved in an AFL club, it's a very privileged position.
"To really exploit it for personal gain, you shouldn't be working at a football club.
"There shouldn't be any betting from people from football clubs on football games."
Ratten said he backed the AFL's policy of sending messages to clubs warning that internal information can not be passed on to the general public.
AFL general manager Adrian Anderson said the league's integrity unit regularly monitor all betting trends on all games.
"It's very important the inside information rules, because we've seen from other sports such as cricket, that that's often where problems begin," he told the ABC's World Today program.
"Sometimes there is an innocent explanation, like somebody observed something at training, such as a defender training forward, practising goal kicks.
"So it's not always because of a disclosure of inside information, but where there are unusual betting trends we have access to that information and we need to investigate that and make sure that we're satisfied that there's been no improper activity."
-AAP/ABC
Tags: sport, australian-football-league, australia, vic, carlton-3053 First posted May 24, 2011 15:18:00
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