The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has reported 64 betting integrity alerts during the first quarter of the year, including 13 in Asia.
The number is largely in line with recent comparable quarters, with 61 alerts reported in 1Q20 and 68 in Q4. Of the 64 to start 2021, tennis was the sport most reported to authorities for suspicious betting activities with 18 cases, closely followed by eSports with 17 and football with 12. Those three sports comprised 75% of all suspicious activity worldwide.
The 13 instances across Asia included three reports around football in Vietnam and two around tennis in Singapore. Europe and Asia accounted for 66% of all suspicious betting alerts for the quarter.
“After a difficult 2020, many operators appear to be close to normality in terms of their pre-pandemic market offering,” said IBIA CEO, Khalid Ali.
“This is reflected in the alert numbers and geographical spread for Q1, with a refocus on those sports that have traditionally and numerically dominated the betting offer globally, namely tennis and football.
“The association and its members continue to work closely with those sports, and indeed all sports that wish to engage with us, to identify potential corruption and to seek robust sanctions to punish and deter such illicit activity.”
The International Betting Integrity Association is the leading global voice on integrity for the licensed betting industry. It is run by operators and protects members from corruption via a monitoring and alert platform that detects and reports suspicious activity on its members’ betting markets.
The association has longstanding information sharing partnerships with leading sports and gambling regulators to utilise its data and prosecute corruption.
