IBIA reports decline in alerts but Europe continues to account for most

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has published its Q2 2021 report, identifying Europe as the continent responsible for the single largest amount of betting integrity alerts.

Overall, 47% of all reported alerts originated in Europe, followed by Asia and South America at 13% each, with alerts spanning across a total of 15 countries. This is a continuing trend first identified in the IBIA’s Q1 report, which saw Europe and Asia account for 66% of all reported alerts.

However, the 37 cases reported in Q2 marks a 41% decline on the 64 identified in Q1 2021 as well as a significant drop on the 65 reported in the same time period in 2020.

With regards to sporting differences, football accounted for 16 cases as opposed to 12 in Q1, whilst nine were recorded for table tennis (Q1: 18), six for tennis (Q1: 18), six for esports (Q1: 17) and one for beach volleyball.

The figures for tennis in particular have been highlighted as representing the lowest number of betting integrity alerts since the IBIA began producing quarterly reports in 2015, although the number of football alerts reported in Q2 represents a 33% increase.

“The 38 cases in Q2 added to the 64 cases in Q1 brings the mid-year total to 102 alerts reported by the association,” said Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA.

“Football has provided the highest number of alerts during that period with 28, followed by tennis (24) and eSports (23). These three sports comprise nearly 75% of all alerts reported in the first half of 2021.”

The announcement follows on from the IBIA’s Optimum Betting Market Report, conducted in cooperation with H2 Gaming Capital, which surveyed 20 jurisdictions across six continents.

Although estimating that the regulated sector suffered an annual loss of $25 million due to match-fixing, the Optimum report found no corruption issues in 99.96% of markets, whilst identifying the UK as having the strongest regulatory infrastructure.

Ali added: “IBIA’s expanding membership means that, as set out in the recently published Optimum Betting Market report, it now represents $137 billion in global regulated betting turnover per annum making it the largest customer-based integrity platform in the world with nearly 50% of the commercial online market.”