The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA), which monitors suspicious betting activity worldwide, recently published its 2023 sports betting integrity report.
The highlight of the report is a significant decrease in suspicious betting alerts. The total number of alerts reported last year fell to 184, representing a 35 percent decline compared to the 2022 figure of 285 alerts.
The 2023 figure is significantly below the average of 244 annual alerts recorded between 2019 and 2022. This decrease suggests that IBIA has effectively detected and deterred suspicious activity over the years, according to CEO Khalid Ali. In fact, IBIA now accounts for more than $137 billion of global betting turnover annually, making it the world’s leading operator-run integrity monitoring body, he said.
IBIA’s suspicious betting activity data helped identify corruption in 74 in 2023. The data contributed to an increase in successful sanctions imposed on clubs, players and officials who violated sports betting rules. The association’s collaboration with sports organizations and regulators has also helped safeguard the integrity of sports events.
Belgium, Brazil, the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic are among the countries that recorded the highest number of alerts in 2023. Brazil, in particular, had the third highest number of suspicious betting alerts, with 11 reported cases.
Soccer and tennis had the highest number of alerts, with 63 and 54 alerts, respectively. However, there has been a noticeable decrease in tennis alerts over the past years, with a 49 percent decline from the 2022 total of 106 alerts.
The association will continue to collaborate with the International Tennis Integrity Agency and other sports sector partners to exchange information on suspicious betting and support the prosecution of wrongdoing.
Despite the progress, challenges remain, such as the threat posed by unregulated operators, particularly in Asia. IBIA emphasizes that the greatest threat to sports integrity comes from these unregulated operators, who operate outside the oversight of well-regulated markets.
