According to IBIA, Brazil registered highest number of football suspicious betting cases in 2021

The 2021 figure is consistent with recent years, with the average number of annual alerts at 240 during 2018-20. The 2021 alerts spanned 13 sports and 49 different countries, with tennis and football continuing to dominate. Europe also continued to provide the highest number of alerts with 50% of the annual total. 

Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, said: “Another challenging year for the sector has passed with the spectre of Covid and its impact on sporting events declining, and hopefully a potential endgame in sight. It is therefore welcomed that the alerts for 2021 showed a downward trend and a return to preCovid numbers. Challenges however persist, notably with the growth of private sports events and establishing integrity protocols to the levels seen in traditional sports bodies. The association is working with a number of stakeholders in this area to improve integrity provisions”.  

“Indeed, the dangers of betting corruption remain, and as the Optimum Betting Market report published last year highlighted, that equates to around $25m per annum in lost revenue for the regulated betting sector globally. It is therefore welcome that the requirement for operators to be part of an integrity monitoring system have gathered pace across the US, and have been endorsed in Sweden, to add to existing requirements in the Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic. The approach in Ontario is particularly worthy of attention and is a best practice model. The association looks forward to working with a wider range of operators on integrity as a result,” he added. 

Trends

1 - 236 alerts were reported to the relevant authorities in 2021:

• This is a 13% decrease of 34 alerts on the 2020 figure;
• 236 alerts are, however, consistent with previous years, with the average number of annual alerts at 240 during the past three years, 2018-2020;
• This figure may be revised in future depending on the outcome of any ongoing investigations.

2 - The 236 alerts spanned 13 sports and 49 different countries:

• Tennis and football continue to provide the majority of alerts.
• 10 alerts were reported in North America, a 54% decrease on the 22 reported in 2020;
• There were 4 alerts on events in the US, a 76% reduction on the 17 reported in 2020;
• Russia recorded the highest number of alerts for a single country, with 27 across all sports.

3 - Tennis saw 80 alerts, a decrease of 18% on the 98 reported in 2020:

• This is a continuation of a downward trend in tennis alerts in recent years with 178 reported in 2018 and 101 reported in 2019;
• There was a considerable reduction in tennis alerts at ITF level, with the 37 alerts a decrease of 26% on the 50 reported in 2020;
• Of the 80 tennis alerts, 23 matches were provided to the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) as intelligence reports as they do not relate to events sanctioned by the main tennis tours. However, some players engaged in those events may fall within the scope of that body’s Tennis Anti-Corruption Program (TACP).

4 - Football saw 66 alerts, an increase of 8% on the 61 reported in 2020 and the highest number of annual alerts IBIA has reported:

• The highest number of football alerts from a single country came from Brazil, with seven;
• There were nine football alerts recorded in African countries, a significant increase on the one alert in 2020 and three in 2019.
   

5 - During 2021 successful sporting or criminal sanctions were announced against 11 teams or players where IBIA had reported suspicious activity on their matches. In several of the cases data from IBIA and its members helped contribute to significant sanctions, such as life bans, being issued.

6 - Over the five-year period 2017-21, IBIA reported 1,222 alerts across 19 sports and 101 countries.

IBIA’s Monitoring & Alert platform: How it works

IBIA’s Monitoring & Alert Platform is a highly effective anti-corruption tool that detects and reports potential fraudulent activity on our members’ betting markets. The bespoke system tracks suspicious transactional activity linked to individual consumer accounts using operators’ internal risk and security control systems:

1 - If a member identifies suspicious betting activity they create an alert in the platform which is shared with all members.

2 - Other members must respond quickly and in detail indicating whether they saw similar activity.

3 - We then review the activity based on our own risk-based criteria to determine whether it warrants further investigation.

4 - Any suspicious activity is then reported to the relevant sports governing bodies and regulator we have an agreement with. Members also make their own reports as required under their respective licensing conditions.

5 - Sports governing bodies and regulators are encouraged to request potentially suspicious events be reviewed by us and our members.

The International Betting Integrity Association is the leading global voice on integrity for the licensed betting industry. It is run by operators for operators, protecting its members from corruption through collective action. Its monitoring and alert platform is a highly effective anticorruption tool that detects and reports suspicious activity on its members’ betting markets. The association has longstanding information sharing partnerships with leading sports and gambling regulators to utilise its data and prosecute corruption. It represents the sector at high-level policy discussion forums such as the IOC, UN, Council of Europe and European Commission.

Source: IBIA/GMB