ESSA reports more cases of suspicious betting

Despite the number of reported cases, suspicious betting decreased 27 percent year-on-year.

UK.- ESSA, the international organisation that represents the legal sports betting industry, has announced that during the second quarter of 2017 53 cases of suspicious betting related to sports events were reported. The number represents a 27 percent decline when compared to the same period in 2016.

Tennis continues to be the sport with the biggest amount of suspicious cases, with thirty one opportunities that were flagged. Football comes in second place with fifteen matches, whilst basketball reported five cases, handball and volleyball one each. Three of the tennis cases took place at this year’s edition of Wimbledon, one in the main tournament and two during the qualifying stages. All those matches are set to be investigated by ESSA’s Tennis Integrity Unit in order to conclude if there was match fixing issues.

ESSA secretary general Khalid Ali said: “Betting integrity issues continue to be a key feature of stakeholder discussions at national and international levels. To that end, ESSA has been asked by the Council of Europe (CoE) to deliver a report on behalf of the private sports betting industry highlighting the challenges facing regulated operators to feed into the CoE’s ongoing efforts to ratify the match-fixing Convention and implement international standards.”

Moreover, the official said that the principal focus of the report will be the information exchange between operators, sports and national platforms and how to identify risk and improve risk management.