IHRB commits to monitoring betting trends with €350,000 investment

The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board (IHRB) has committed to an investment of €350,000 to an external organisation which sets to help the regulator both monitor betting trends and investigate breaches of betting rules in the coming months.

As part of a four-year commercial package issued by tender, the new investments and investigations are set to ensure that integrity in the sport is sustained. IHRB chief executive Denis Egan has said the procurement of a third party will be completed within the next three months.

“We are outsourcing an element of our function,” Egan explained. “It’s the same as using a third-party service provider to provide the laboratory, or to provide camera pictures. This will be a monitoring service.”

The decision follows the footsteps of a number of other sports organisations around the world, whereby a number have employed sports data companies to monitor trends, alongside sports betting monitoring companies to crack down on match-fixing and suspicious betting patterns.

The Irish regulator already holds a number of memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with principal betting operators, which allows them to access information on the sport.

The IHRB will continue to use MOUs, as Egan added: “The tender is seeking a service to centralise the current monitoring and analysis of betting markets and trends in respect of Irish racing and using available external expertise to do so in an efficient manner.”