SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has reported a total 50 suspicious betting cases in the third quarter of 2023.
The instances were identified across IBIA members’ global businesses, which covers more than 125 sports betting brands and over US$137bn in betting turnover per annum. Notably, it was football and tennis that accounted for 56% of these Q3 alerts.
In detail, the 50 incidents of suspicious betting concerned eight sports across 21 countries and five continents.
This, however, is a 41% decrease when compared to the 2022 Q3 total, which saw 85 alerts altogether.
Lastly, Europe – with 30 alerts – made up 60% of the total report, followed by South America with 7 alerts (14%).
Khalid Ali, IBIA CEO, commented on the findings: “The quarter saw a continued reduction in alerts with a more than 30% decrease in the first three quarters relative to 2022, with tennis a major contributory factor.”
Tennis had the highest number of alerts with 15 in Q3 2023, representing a 7% increase on the 14 alerts reported in Q2 and a 55% decrease on the 33 reported in Q3 2022, and football accounted for 13 alerts, a 32% decrease on the 19 cases reported in Q2.
“During the quarter, IBIA and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) co-hosted a best practice integrity seminar in New York with many of the premier sports and betting operators in the US,” Ali continued.
“That cross-sector cooperative approach underlines the strength of our relationship with tennis, as acknowledged by the ITIA, and our shared commitment to working in partnership to combat corruption in that sport.”
Of the 50 alerts reported in the quarter, three were related to women-only events, 43 to men-only events, as well as three mixed gender ones and one animal sporting event (greyhound racing).
IBIA has recently released a study that analyses the size and characteristics of the women’s sports betting market and examines the potential vulnerability of women’s sports to match-fixing.
