Sports betting and corruption: How to preserve the - SportAccord

Sports betting and corruption: How to preserve the integrity of sport
odds-fixers. As a result of this situation, the operators are setting up sophisticated, fully computerised
matrix systems which give a finer appreciation in the event of a suspect movement and can be used to
identify fraud after the event.
A number of types of bet may trigger a warning, particularly when placement seems irrational in
relation to the level of the teams playing (pre-match) or to the way the score is developing (live).
Suspicions are intensified if the liquid assets in the market are substantial, if certain individual bets are
particularly high, or if the number of accounts concerned is significant and they are located in the
same geographic area. Odds-fixers who follow the market on behalf of operators sometimes observe
suspect movements themselves in real time. For example, in a friendly Nigeria-Argentine match in
June 2011 - into which FIFA has opened an inquiry - livers were aware of the convergence of a
number of suspect elements: an additional goal was scored from a dubious penalty in the 98 th minute
when only five minutes of extra time had been due - leading up to this, a large number of bets had
been placed on the Betfair exchange betting site in favour of an additional goal being scored before the
end of the match 125 .
Monitoring systems also make it possible to identify the number of bets placed on the same sporting
event or aspects of the game, or substantial bets placed on lower-level competitions.
Apart from studying bets, monitoring systems are also used for the surveillance of client accounts. The
opening of massive numbers of accounts to place bets relating to a specific sporting event may
indicate a criminal dynamic.
These detection and warning systems fall into three categories:
- Those drawn up by each operator to develop and protect their business (risk management), and
the use of which can be extended to detecting money-laundering and fraud in sport.
- Those shared between operators as a common warning system and to provide them with
additional elements for assessing risks.
- Those integrated into sports organisations through the use of targeted surveillance systems at
their competitions.
Operators’ internal systems
All operators have specific security measures to protect their activity. Scales of alerts are established,
on the basis of which reports are drawn up by sport and by competition. Clients accounts are also
monitored and analysed. Some of the data is used for both management purposes (so as to optimise
operators margins) and to provide an alert in the event of fraud. Operators keep a close watch on the
bets of their most profitable clients and/or those laying high stakes, and therefore know their
professional gamblers (or wise men ) well.
125 Interview with a liver , June 2011. NB: A good odds-fixer must have a definite taste for figures and analysing numerical
trends so as to have a good understanding of the logic of odds. They must have a good memory and also - increasingly - a
good knowledge of sport.
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