Danish Gambling Authority takes on match-fixing duties

The Spillemyndigheden, the Danish Gambling Authority, assumed new responsibilities this morning, taking on anti-match-fixing duties from Anti-Doping Denmark.

Becoming the ‘secretariat for the national platform to combat match-fixing’, Spillemyndigheden will coordinate various meeting forums and analyse information on suspicious sports bets. 

The authority will also assume control of information sharing and reporting roles, informing international and national authorities and organisations when suspicious matches and potential violations are identified.

Anders Dorph. Spillemyndigheden Director, said: “It’s a very important task and a big responsibility that I’m glad we’ve been given.

“Since in the long term we will get data on betting on events across the gambling providers that are licensed in Denmark, it makes very good sense that we also have the coordinating and unifying function.”

The Spillemyndigheden has highlighted a need for extensive international cooperation and effective leveraging of data as essential to its new role as Denmark’s platform to counter match-fixing. 

This former objective sees the authority liaise with regulators and anti-match-fixing investigators in other countries, based on the Spillemyndigheden’’s experience of cross-border cooperation.

Although the authority has not stated any such objective, it is possible that the regulator could pursue an enhanced relationship with organisations such as the International Betting Integrity Association and United Lotteries for Integrity in Spot (ULIS).

Dorph continued: “We will have a strong focus on collaborating with, for example, national platforms in other countries. It will be completely natural for us, as we have close cooperation with gambling authorities all over the world, and international cooperation is something we already value highly.”

The authority takes on responsibility for countering match-fixing from Anti-Doping Denmark under political plans outlined in February 2022, described by Spillemyndigheden as a ‘political agreement in the gaming area’.

Spillemyndigheden assumption of betting integrity duties comes shortly after the regulator published figures for 2022, showing that sports betting in Denmark is on the rise, recording a GGR increase of 4.8% to DKK 607m (€81.4m).