SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The International Ski and Snowboard Federation (FIS) has signed an agreement with Sportradar, targeting enhanced sports safeguarding and integrity provisions.
Sportradar Integrity Services (SIS) will provide the cross-border skiing and snowboarding governing body with insights into the ‘global betting landscape’ on the two sports.
Additionally, the Swiss sportstech firm’s Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) will play a key role in the arrangement, being used to monitor betting events across FIS’ disciplines.
Andreas Krannich, Sportradar Integrity Services Managing Director, said: “Skiing and snowboarding disciplines have become increasingly popular across global betting markets in recent times, with this betting interest only expected to increase in the coming years.
“Therefore, the formation of this partnership demonstrates both parties’ commitment to mitigating any integrity-related threats that may occur. We look forward to building our relationship with FIS throughout this agreement as we seek to uphold the integrity of all FIS’ competitions.”
Using UFDS, Sportradar’s integrity team will work to analyse betting patterns and report any anomalies to better identify potential cases of match-fixing, having detected 7,700 suspicious matches across multiple sports over the past 17 years.
The agreement comes after an active second half of 2022 for SIS, having inked deals with the European Table Tennis Union (ETTU), International Golf Federation (IGF), Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF) and Twain Sport.
For FIS, the agreement comes amid increased betting interest on its events, with up to an estimated €40m wagered on events such as the FIS Alpine Ski World Cup, FIS Cross-Country World Cup and FIS Ski Jumping World Cup per season.
FIS Director of Sports Integrity, Sarah Fussek, added: “The insight provided to us by Sportradar Integrity Services regarding the global betting landscape within our sports and the associated risk factors will put us in the best possible position to counteract any integrity related threats.
“It is essential to us that robust provisions are in place in order to safeguard our competitions, and this agreement enables us to do this in the strongest way possible going forward, as we gain a detailed understanding of the integrity risks facing our sports.”
