The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) reported 56 alerts of suspicious betting to relevant authorities in Q1 2024, which is 22 more than the 34 alerts reported in Q4 2023.
These figures are also a 12% spike year-over-year when compared to the 50 alerts reported in Q1 2023.
Six sports were impacted across 21 countries and five continents in these 56 incidents. Football (soccer) had the highest number of alerts by sport with 24, accounting for 43% of all incidents. Only 16 suspicious betting incidents were reported in this sport during Q4 2023 and 15 came through in Q1 2023. Tennis’ 14 total alerts contributed to 25% of all reported incidents, and basketball’s nine alerts made up another 16% of the total.
Of all alerts identified in Q1 2024, 41% were on sporting events taking place in Asia, while North and South America each experienced 18% of all cases reported. Europe saw a 76% decrease in alerts compared to Q4 2023. There were only four total alerts identified on European sporting events in Q1 2024 versus 17 reported in Q4 2023.
Turkey had the highest number of alerts for a particular country and represented 14% of the total reported alerts in Q1 2024. Across the eight suspicious betting incidents in Turkey, five were in football (soccer), two were in tennis, and one was from a basketball game.
“The first quarter saw an increase in reported alerts highlighting the ongoing challenge our members, sports and regulatory authorities face from corrupt activity, with football and Asia dominating our Q1 report,” said IBIA CEO Khalid Ali.
Focus on Canada
Earlier this year, the IBIA released a study that showcased the correlation between the wide availability of sports betting products and the proportion of consumers who place bets with onshore regulated sports betting operators (known as the channeling rate).
Its Q1 2024 report pointed to the model employed in Ontario sports betting as the more productive and secure strategy for the Canadian market. The numbers comparing channelization potential for Ontario versus the monopoly approach taken by the rest of the country are convincing. The Ontario sports betting market is expected to reach a 92% channelisation rate in 2024 and rise to 97% by 2028, whereas the rest of Canada combined is forecast to yield around 11% in 2024 and only rise to 13% by 2028.
In other words, the more products offered by online sportsbooks in legal, regulated markets, the more people use them and the less they use offshore options.
Maintaining integrity
It’s been tough sledding in recent weeks for the legal sports betting industry’s public image. A couple of high-profile incidents took place in Canada, as well.
Most notably, the NBA smacked Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter with a lifetime ban for what commissioner Adam Silver called “blatant violations” of the league’s gaming rules.
Just this week, the CFL suspended recently retired defensive lineman Shawn Lemon for betting on the league’s games, including one he played in. Unfortunately, these stories are just the latest in an ever-growing list of incidents of athletes, coaches, or associated personnel betting on sports.
For now, although these incidents create major waves in the news cycle, the data shows that these are actually isolated occurrences. Sportradar released its third annual Integrity Report in early March indicating that 99.5% of sporting events remain untainted by match-fixing. In January, the IBIA also exhibited a 35% year-over-year decrease in suspicious sports betting alerts reported globally in 2023 compared to 2022, in its own 2023 Integrity Report.
What the IBIA really hoped to convey in its most recent reporting is that having regulated measures in place to govern sports betting is the most productive way to maintain the industry’s integrity. All of IBIA’s alerts are identified using customer account data from the over 50 companies and 125 sports betting brands that make IBIA the largest integrity monitor of its type in the world.
Ali added that this “account data provides evidentiary information that is vital for advancing investigations and imposing sanctions.” The data proves that in the absence of sophisticated legal options, bettors will just go to offshore books that put them at risk of fraud and corruption. And in all likelihood, these transgressions were already happening anyway, so now there are just frameworks in place to detect them like never before.
In a sense then, situations like Porter’s illustrate that regulated sports betting actually works.
