The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has signed a strategic partnership with the All-in Diversity Project to promote diversity and equality within the sports betting industry.

The sports betting integrity body said the partnership will expand its focus from keeping sport free of match-fixing and betting corruption, to working on equality issues that exist in sport.

The collaboration with the gambling industry initiative, who formed in 2017 to tackle the issue of diversity, equality and inclusion on a global scale, will promote diversity within the sports betting industry by bringing the two group’s philosophies together.

The other main objective is to tackle how the wealth inequality in women’s sports could potentially lead to integrity concerns.

IBIA CEO Khalid Ali said: “The demographics of sports betting is changing and, as an industry, we need to be aware of the opportunities and challenges this presents.

“By working together, we hope to tackle these issues through a series of events and studies that we have planned for the next few years”.

All-in Diversity Project co-founder Kelly Kehn added: “Collaborating with standard setting global organisations such as IBIA means we can accelerate progress and engage with a wider audience to address some of the challenges faced by sports and sports betting - from the hidden impact of inequality on integrity, to the more obvious issues related to gender and race within the entire sports and betting ecosystem by sharing data, resources and experience and developing tools that work.”

Just last week, the IBIA revealed that 270 instances of suspicious betting were reported to the relevant authorities in 2020, representing a 48% year-on-year rise.