As sports betting figures reached record highs in 2021, it led to the increase in suspicious activity in matches, according to a new finding by Sportradar Integrity Services.
Sportradar’s bet-monitoring service, the Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS), uncovered suspicious activity in 903 matches last year, across 10 sports and in 76 countries.
The report says that it is the highest number of suspicious matches recorded in Sportradar Integrity Services’ 17-year history—a 2.4 per cent increase on the previous high of 882 suspicious matches recorded in 2019.
According to the firm's estimates, the global sports betting turnover was more than €1.45 trillion, while about €165 million was generated in match-fixing betting profit.
“Organised crime syndicates are funded by revenue generated from betting fraud, which can in turn finance other illicit activities,” said the report. “The overall sum generated through betting corruption last year may even be greater, as this figure does not include any other potential financial schemes such as money laundering.”
Football is said to have had the highest frequency of suspicious matches at a rate of one in every 201 fixtures. Football is followed by e-sports (one in 384) and basketball (one in 498).
While there is little mention of cricket in the report, the sport had nine recorded instances of suspicious matches. Cricket had an annual betting turnover of €68 billion, the fourth-highest after football, tennis and basketball.
The Indian Premier League attracted the third-highest level of turnover (€163 million) of any competition worldwide due to the popularity of the competition in key betting markets like the UK and Australia.
