The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has released its 2023 sports betting integrity report.
The report indicates that the total number of suspicious sports betting alerts reported across the year decreased by 35%, dropping from 285 in 2022 to 184 in 2023.
This drop is significantly below the average of 244 annual alerts recorded between 2019 and 2022.
With these trends in mind, the report appears to underscore the efficacy of IBIA's integrity monitoring efforts, which now cover over $137bn in global betting turnover annually.
Khalid Ali, IBIA CEO, stated: “The fall in last year’s global alert numbers is encouraging. It confirms that our world-leading monitoring and alert network is making a very important contribution to deterring criminals from seeking to defraud our members, and that increased collaboration between IBIA, sports and regulators is a winning combination.
“Despite this progress, we must remain vigilant and recognise that the greatest threat to sports integrity comes from unregulated operators, most notably in Asia.”
The 2023 report also highlighted the introduction of legal requirements for regulated sports betting operators to join an international sports integrity monitoring body in well-regulated markets. Brazil, a recent entrant to this regulatory framework, ranked third in the number of suspicious betting alerts, following the UK and the Czech Republic.
Overall, football once again emerged as the sport with the highest number of alerts (63), consistent with previous years. Tennis, the second most reported sport with 54 alerts, demonstrated a 49% decrease from 2022.
Ali offered further comments on these trends, adding: “The ongoing decrease in tennis alerts, along with notable reductions in table tennis and esports, is very encouraging.
“The progress made in tennis over several years now demonstrates that successfully identifying and sanctioning match-fixing sends a powerful message to athletes and officials about the risks of engaging in match-fixing.”
