23 October 2024: The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) reported 42 alerts of suspicious betting to the relevant authorities in the third quarter (Q3) of 2024. The Q3 2024 total is 54% less than the revised figure of 91 alerts in Q2 2024, and 16% less when compared to the Q3 2023 total of 50 alerts.
IBIA and its growing membership monitor over $300bn per annum in sports betting turnover (handle) across more than 125 sports betting brands globally.
The 42 incidents of suspicious betting in Q3 concerned five sports, across 18 countries and 5 continents. Other key data for Q3 2024 includes:
- Football and tennis had the most alerts in Q3 with 14 each, totaling 67% of all alerts.
- Sporting events in Europe, with 14 alerts, made up 33% of the total reported; that was a decrease of 6 alerts on European events compared to the revised Q2 2024 of 20 alerts.
- 5 alerts on sporting events in Burundi made up 12% of all alerts in Q3 2024; there have been six alerts on sporting events in Burundi so far during 2024, the first alerts since 2020.
- 12 esports alerts reported represent a 75% decrease on the 48 reported in Q2 2024.
Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, said: “The third quarter saw football and tennis register the highest number of alerts, albeit those numbers are in line with those seen in recent years and, in the case of tennis, represent a significant decrease compared to its peak. It should also be noted that esports alerts fell back to more normal levels in Q3, following an increase during Q1 and Q2 that was primarily the result of a linked case. We continue to work closely with the integrity authorities for those sports, and indeed all sports, where we see suspicious betting, with the aim of detecting and sanctioning corrupt activity to protect sporting events and betting markets.”
The Q3 integrity report includes a focus on the main football betting markets and data from the Availability of Sports Betting Products report released earlier this year. That calculated that the main football markets are forecast to generate over $500bn of turnover globally in 2024, leading to total gross win of $46.3bn. Consumers expect access to these core betting markets and any regulatory restriction of these products will inevitably impact onshore channelisation.
IBIA is a not-for-profit integrity monitoring body that has no competing conflicts with the delivery of commercial services to other sectors and has a core aim to protect regulated sports betting markets from match-fixing. IBIA’s global monitoring network is a highly effective anti-corruption tool, detecting and reporting suspicious activity in regulated betting markets.