The Netherlands has now been dealing with a scandal involving some athletes placing wagers on their own sport, with an investigation uncovering alleged widespread betting among football players. As a result, the gambling regulatory body of the country – Kansspelautoriteit (KSA) – has recently released a report containing details about potential match-fixing activity that has taken place in the Netherlands between October 2021 and December 2022.
According to a local media hub, no less than 25 football players in the country have been involved in betting on their own sport, placing bets on games they either participated in or that involved other football clubs.
As confirmed by the Kansspelautoriteit, an investigation found that players from Eredivisie and the Kitchen Champion Division of the league have taken part in the aforementioned activities that are currently illegal under the provisions of the Dutch gambling law. However, it still remains unknown whether the footballers will be prosecuted for any possible crimes and more information on the issue are necessary.
Reportedly, there were 27 alleged instances of professional football players breaching the League rules by taking part in sports betting. However, KNVB (the Royal Dutch Football Association) received anonymous details about the violations only. As a result, the body has not been able to identify the players, so it was unable to investigate further or initiate any disciplinary proceedings against anyone because of the lack of information.
Five Sports Betting Companies Say There May Have Been Match-Fixing Activities
Kansspelautoriteit, however, was able to help shed some light on the names of the players who participated in the illegal football betting. It was required to present data about the suspicious betting activity to the Dutch Financial Intelligence Unit.
Furthermore, considering the fact that the gambling regulatory body of the Netherlands does not have any specific task force to identify match-fixing, the Sports Betting Intelligence Unit (SIBU), which is its internal agency, has set up a hotline allowing anyone to report suspicious activity that could be linked to so-called match-fixing. As KSA shared, five sports betting operators reported 40 incidents of possible match-fixing activities to the SIBU during the reporting period, with the majority of these reports (83%) being received by the regulator in April and June last year.
The aforementioned 40 incidents included 28 reports linked to people directly involved in a game and/or competition, as well as 12 reports of unusual sports betting patterns.
The 28 reports of individuals who placed bets on events or sports they were involved in themselves were highlighted by the five reporting sports betting operators. According to data provided by the companies, there were six incidents associated with the Eredivisie, 19 incidents associated with the Eerste Divisie, as well as two incidents associated with Second Division. On the other hand, the unusual betting patterns were also reported by all five sports betting operators and involved foreign competitions in football (eight incidents), tennis (two incidents), snooker (one incident), and table tennis (one incident).
While some of the incidents occurred in other clubs’ matches from the same league, many occurred in matches in which the professional athletes were directly involved. Some wagers combined placing a bet on their own match plus the match of another club. Mostly low stakes were involved.
