Suspicious betting alerts more than doubled year-on-year during the second quarter of 2022, as the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) received a total of 88 alerts during the quarter.
That represents a 132% year-on-year increase compared to Q2 2021’s 38 reported alerts, and an 87% increase quarter-on-quarter compared to the 47 reported in Q1 2022.
As is commonly reported by IBIA, the majority of alerts were registered on football and tennis fixtures, with each sport responsible for 32 and 27 of the total, respectively. Together, tennis and football therefore made up more than two thirds of all Q2 alerts.Horse racing received the next largest number of suspicious alerts, at 12, while eight reports were submitted on table tennis games, four on esports, three on basketball, and a single alert each was reported for handball (in France) and greyhound racing (in the UK).
By region, more than half of the suspicious betting alerts were reported in Europe, with a total of 46 reports made on the continent – up 156% from just 18 in Q2 2021.
European alerts came from a variety of jurisdictions including the UK, Netherlands, Italy, Denmark and Germany, as well as from countries in eastern Europe including Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro and Bulgaria.
The largest number of alerts from a single sport in a single jurisdiction saw six suspicious betting alerts on table tennis matches in Poland.
Suspicious alerts from Asia more than tripled year-on-year, as 18 alerts from the region were registered in the last quarter, up from just five in the prior-year comparative period.The vast majority of those alerts (15) related to football matches, while the remaining three related to tennis.
North America also saw a precipitous increase in suspicious betting activity, after just two alerts were reported for the region in Q2 2021 – both from the Dominican Republic relating to tennis matches.
Last quarter, the 13 alerts reported in North America all came from the US – with 10 suspicious alerts on horse racing and a further three on tennis.
Africa saw a 150% increase in suspicious betting reports, but the raw numbers in the region are low. After reporting two suspicious alerts on football matches in the region last year, this year four football alerts and one tennis alert were reported – in Ghana and Algeria, respectively.
The number of suspicious alerts in South America, meanwhile, went in the other direction and was reduced year-on-year from five to two – with just one suspicious football alert in Brazil and one tennis alert in Chile being reported in the last quarter.
