The beginning of the month saw the leading body for the global licensed betting industry publish its yearly report on suspicious betting alerts.
The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) revealed an increase in the number of suspicious betting alerts for 2022. It explained that the growth registered in the sector came as a result of a considerably broadening membership and the coverage of its monitoring network for the regulated betting sector.
The association’s report contains a total of 268 cases of alerts in 2022, with the figure representing a 14% increase from the year before. However, it is also consistent with the 230 average annual alerts registered in the period between 2019 and 2021. There were 50 alerts of suspicious betting alerts in the fourth quarter of 2022, adding to the numbers registered in the first, second and third quarters of the year – 48, 80, and 90, respectively. The first quarter of 2022 was surprisingly the least busy, especially considering the fact that the largest number of suspicious betting alerts is usually reported in the first and last quarters of the year.
As revealed by the IBIA, the last year’s alerts spanned 61 countries and 14 sports, with tennis and football still dominating. The highest number of suspicious betting alerts originated in Europe, which accounted for almost half of the annual total.
The International Betting Integrity Association has seen the increase mentioned above, but it has partly been due to the number of new partners accumulated over the 12-month period. The association confirmed that its list of trusted members has been subject to heavy growth.
Number of Memberships at the IBIA Also Grows in 2022
In the period between 2018 and 2022, the International Betting Integrity Association reported 1,224 suspicious betting activity alerts across 102 countries and 21 sports. The Association made 559 alerts in tennis and 295 alerts in football in the five-year period, with the two sports combined accounting for 70% of all cases of suspicious betting activity. In 2022 alone, there were 102 alerts in tennis and 67 in football.
The body representing the international licensed betting sector also revealed that a total of 15 criminal sanctions were announced in 2022 against players, sports officials, and even entire teams. The sanctions that were specifically included in the announcements were associated with proven cases of sports manipulation. The findings eventually resulted in significant sanctions, such as life bans.
Other cases investigated by the International Betting Integrity Association were associated with suspicious activities that were not 100% proven cases of manipulation and match-fixing.
For the time being, more than 45 companies and 125 sports betting brands, many of which are among the leading regulated betting operations on a global scale, are part of the IBIA’s network, making the Association the biggest organization of its kind. Whilst mitigating integrity activity is still continuing across all of the Association’s markets, North America has remained the market that drew the most attention, which is understandable, considering the IBIA is the biggest integrity regulator in Ontario.
