The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) said there were 40 incidents of suspicious betting activity identified by its members in the first three months of 2023, although only six of these took place in Asia.
The 1Q23 tally represented a slight decline on the 42 incidents a year earlier, while Asia’s six suspicious betting reports was down from 10 in the first quarter of 2022. It was also significantly lower on average than the 268 alerts through all of 2022, which included 51 in Asia.
Of the 40 incidents reported in 1Q23, football had the highest number of reported alerts globally with 15, followed by tennis with 12.
Spain was the country with the highest number of Q1 alerts – its eight alerts on sporting events equalling the total number of alerts on Spanish events for the whole of 2022.
Asia’s suspicious betting reports included football reports in Hong Kong and Israel, cricket reports in Bangladesh and Oman, a tennis report in Turkey and a basketball report in Singapore, the IBIA said.
The organization added that its members represent nearly 50% of all commercial online betting globally and over US$137 billion in sports betting turnover.
“IBIA’s monitoring and alert network provides the most comprehensive, robust and detailed intelligence on suspicious betting activity globally,” said IBIA CEO, Khalid Ali.
“It utilizes detailed customer-account data that is only available to IBIA and its members and covers nearly 50% of all regulated commercial online betting. By harnessing those collective resources, we are able deploy a protective shield around IBIA operators, resulting in fewer attempts to corrupt our members compared to non-members.”
