International betting integrity body ESSA reported 53 cases of suspicious betting to authorities during the second quarter of 2017, almost double the 27 cases reported during the first three months of the year.
Tennis was the primary sport of interest with 31 suspicious betting cases, followed by football with 15 cases, basketball five and one case each for popular European sports handball and volleyball.
ESSA Secretary General Khalid Ali said, “Betting integrity issues continue to be a key feature of stakeholder discussions at national and international levels. To that end, ESSA has been asked by the Council of Europe (CoE) to deliver a report on behalf of the private sports betting industry highlighting the challenges facing regulated operators to feed into the CoE’s ongoing efforts to ratify the match-fixing convention and implement international standards.
“This important process will also feed into ESSA’s own integrity conference in London on 12 October.”
Last year ESSA reported a total of 130 alerts of suspicious betting activity, a 30% increase on 2015 numbers, with tennis accounting for 79% of those alerts.
The results of the 2Q17 report means tennis has now had the highest number of alerts for 10 consecutive quarters.
ESSA, which holds a number of positions on match-fixing policy forums at organizations including the International Olympic Committee, is currently driving various activities aimed at addressing match-fixing, including a player education program and an international anti match-fixing project with Transparency International.
The body works in conjunction with many of the world’s biggest regulated sports betting operators stretching from Europe through Asia and beyond.
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