Report says $140bn laundered through illegal betting

uch as $140bn (£80bn) is being laundered annually through illegal sports betting, according to a two-year study on sports corruption by the International Centre for Sport Security (ICSS) and Paris Sorbonne University.

The report, titled Protecting the Integrity of Sport Competition: The Last Bet for Modern Sport reveals how insufficient regulatory efforts have allowed illegal betting to flourish, leading to more match fixing, and makes a number of recommendations to improve the way corruption is tackled.

Chris Eaton, director of sport integrity at ICSS, said: "The rapid evolution of the global sports betting market has seen an increased risk of infiltration by organised crime and money laundering.

"Alongside this, the transformation of the nature of betting, with more complex types such as live-betting, which according to this study is the most vulnerable, has made suspect activity even harder to detect.

"Whilst monitoring systems are essential, more fundamental questions need to be addressed and this Sorbonne-ICSS Sport Integrity Report is a crucial first step in understanding the complex relationship between the sinister phenomenon of sports-betting fraud and the more publically-reprehensible and visible manipulation of sporting competitions."

The report, which was the result of a collaboration of over 70 experts, concludes that as much as 80% of sports betting could be illegal, rendering transactions undetectable. Money from such transactions feeds into and supports internationally-operating match fixers, who manipulate games around the world. Eaton claims that to tackle match-fixing it’s necessary to target their "life-blood" ̶ the cash flowing in from illicit bets.

The report suggests there are around 8,000 legal operators based in offshore tax havens, while the number of illegal operators is impossible to even estimate.

As sports betting increasingly moves online, with e-betting representing 30% of the global market already, it will open up more opportunities for exploitation by criminals whose activity will be harder to spot.

While emphasising that the integrity of all sports worldwide is at risk, the report highlights football and cricket as the worst affected, followed by tennis, basketball, badminton and motor racing.

It cites Asia as the source of the majority of illicit activity, making up 53% of the illegal betting market. Eaton says that while China, India, the US and France are leading the way in combating betting fraud, this is not matched by the Philippines or in South East Asian countries such as Thailand, Laos and Vietnam where the betting market is largely underground.

He added that European and South American markets are also affected by betting fraud because match fixing most often occurs in such areas, where games are often most gambled on.

Although it says that most competition manipulation occurs at a national level, the report stresses that match fixing and illicit betting are transnational activities and need to be dealt with as such.

One problem it cites is a lack of co-operation across borders, with Laurent Vidal, chair of the Sorbonne-ICSS research programme, stressing that an international agreement around the manipulation of sport competitions is "now an urgent necessity".

Speaking to Reuters, Eaton agreed that the fight has to be global because "sports betting is global, sport is global and organised crime is global”.

He continued: "The only people who are not fighting globally are the governments in the world, they are doing it at a national level and they cannot win at this national level."

The report also says that cooperation between stakeholders on a national level is insufficient and that stakeholder relationships are young and informal, with 60% of initiatives launched in the last 18 months and 40% of these developed in Europe.

In addition it cites the "disparate" response on behalf of sports federations, suggesting governance and sport- betting regulations need to be improved and regulatory authorities need to be equipped with the means and power to enforce the rules.

It recommends an internationally agreed blacklist of illegal operators, and the ability to block payments and withhold licences, and encourages cooperation between legal operators and sports bodies through enhanced monitoring systems or the exchange of intelligence.

Other practical solutions suggested include the creation of a sports-betting tax to finance investigations, an integrity risk assessment and management system for sports organisations and the prohibition of players, coaches and administrators from betting on competitions and matches within their sport.

Similar proposals have recently been considered elsewhere, for example by the Football Association who have been discussing a blanket ban on betting for all participants - including players, managers and so on - on any football-related matter anywhere in the world.

The report emerges at a time when global football leagues are being faced with match-fixing allegations and prosecutions and just after the Daily Telegraph's revelations that anti-corruption forces are investigating some of the most detailed evidence yet about widespread fixing across the cricketing world.

Mohammed Hanzab, president of the ICSS, said: "With reports of match fixing and corruption now plaguing sport on a daily basis, it is time for key organisations in sport, betting and government to step forward and work together to eradicate these problems once and for all."

Hanzab also warned in an opening speech at the Sorbonne on Thursday: "The problem is getting worse. If we do nothing sport will come to be seen as an arena of corruption."