Sportradar Report Shows Sports Betting Expansion Hasn’t Led To Increased Match-Fixing

Article by : Erik Gibbs Mar 6, 2024

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Sportradar Integrity Services, a division within the Sportradar umbrella, has unveiled its yearly report titled “Betting Corruption and Match-fixing in 2023.” The report is a comprehensive overview of questionable betting activities globally, drawing insights from monitoring around 850,000 matches and events across 70 sports.

In 2023, 1,329 matches across 11 sports in 105 countries were flagged as suspicious, highlighting the scale of potential issues in the realm of sports integrity. Sportradar Integrity Services reported that artificial intelligence (AI) played a crucial role in identifying 73% (977 cases) of questionable matches in the previous year, marking a 123% increase from 2022.

The integration of AI into Sportradar’s Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) enhanced monitoring rates. Emphasizing the need for accurate data interpretation, Sportradar emphasizes that it is committed to advancing human oversight and AI capabilities to ensure sports’ integrity.

The key findings of Sportradar Integrity Services’ report include 1,295 suspicious matches in men’s events and 34 in women’s events. Europe recorded the highest number of suspicious matches at 667, up from 630 in 2022, followed by Asia with 302, up from 240 in 2022, and South America with 217, down from 225 the previous year.

Notably, account-level wagering data successfully detected 100% of suspicious matches in tennis and table tennis, along with 85% in volleyball, underscoring the importance of collaboration with the sports wagering industry.

Soccer, being the most popular sport for wagering, experienced a significant impact from match-fixing, registering 880 suspicious matches, followed by basketball with 205 matches and table tennis with 70 matches.

In the past year, Sportradar’s reports played a pivotal role in implementing 147 criminal and sporting sanctions, covering 10 sports in 23 countries across 39 cases, solidifying its leadership in integrity services.

With a global network of over 220 allies, spanning law enforcement, national platforms, state authorities and sports organizations, Sportradar is committed to safeguarding sports integrity by combating threats such as doping, match-fixing and diverse forms of corruption.

Andreas Krannich, Executive VP of Integrity, underscored the significance of technology investment in detecting match-fixing, emphasizing Sportradar’s comprehensive strategy.

This approach integrates AI models, account-level data, industry collaboration and human expertise to effectively prevent and detect risks to sports integrity.

Sportradar’s cutting-edge Unified Fraud Detection System (UFDS) utilizes AI to identify suspicious matches in real-time, complemented by the Sportradar Integrity Exchange (SIE), where over 70 wagering operators actively contribute by reporting dubious information.