SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
Yolo Group has become the latest member of the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA).
The company – established in 2014, now with offices in Estonia, Malta, Brazil, Australia and Guernsey – will see its Sportsbet.io brand feed into IBIA’s global integrity monitoring network.
Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, stated: “I am delighted to welcome Yolo Group to the association. Yolo Group’s decision to join IBIA demonstrates the company’s desire to utilise the best integrity protection available globally for its sports betting product and further expands IBIA’s leading integrity monitoring network.”
The move comes ahead of the anticipated opening of the Brazilian sports betting market which will require, as a condition of licensing, that an operator engage with an integrity monitoring body.
A number of Brazilian focused operators joined IBIA in 2023 and, according to H2 Gambling Capital, IBIA members already account for over 60% of remote gambling in Brazil making IBIA ‘uniquely placed’ to protect the integrity of that market.
“The association looks forward to working closely with the operator to protect it from corrupt betting activity both on a global stage and in relation to specific markets such as Brazil,” Ali added.
The operator joins around 50 other companies and over 125 top sports betting brands in the association.
Matthew D’Emanuele, CEO Yolo Entertainment at Yolo Group, emphasised that the firm takes betting integrity ‘incredibly seriously’.
“That’s why joining the IBIA is such an important step for us,” he continued. “Our industry relies upon safeguarding sporting competition, and we’ll be working closely with the IBIA to provide all the support we can to help provide a fun, fast and fair environment for sports betting.”
Earlier this month, it was announced that Brazil had advanced the launch of a regulated federal sports betting marketplace in 2024, as the Ministry of Finance fulfils the key requisite of forming a ‘Special Secretariat’ to monitor and report on market activities.
Detailed via a decree published by the Ministry of Finance, the Brazil ‘Bets’ marketplace will be supervised by the ‘Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas (SPA)’ – the ‘Secretariat of Prizes and Betting’.
The decree detailed that the Secretariat’s primary function is to support the Ministry of Finance, in its duties as the principal authority governing the laws of Brazil’s federal sports betting marketplace.
