Big Debate: Is the war against match-fixing being won?

Yes

Chris Dougan, chief communications officer, Genius Sports Group

As Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers, famously said, “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance”. In a similar way, safeguarding the integrity of sports requires all participants, whether they be players, match officials, sportsbooks or regulators to maintain a constant vigil against the real and present dangers of match-fixing.

Match-fixing is a constantly evolving threat and the battle to protect the integrity of sports must never be taken for granted or rendered complete.

The spectrum of types of match-fixing threats varies widely across different sporting competitions as well as the extent to which sports integrity measures are policed and enforced across different jurisdictions. And while the Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the gulf between the wealthiest leagues and federations and lower-tier sports, certain progress has been made in strengthening the integrity protections available.

Leagues and federations around the world are now deploying advanced bet monitoring systems, via supplier partnerships, that identify anomalous activity across the global markets in real-time to help flag potential match-fixing incidents as well as provide meaningful data points to inform full-scale investigations.

This technology, coupled with robust education programmes, model rules and regulations and intelligence systems, means that sports are much better equipped to identify, manage and prevent incidents of betting-related corruption.

However, there can be no room for complacency in the fight against sports corruption. If further progress is to be made, there needs to be effective cooperation on a global scale between sports, betting, regulators and law enforcement. In newly regulated betting markets such as the US, this cooperation must be backed with robust licensing criteria and important measures such as information sharing agreements.

However, in major illegal betting markets in parts of Asia, this type of key stakeholder cooperation is more challenging as there is limited transparency and oversight over which betting markets are made available.

Tackling illegal betting markets is an important first step in creating a more responsible and transparent sporting ecosystem to reduce the threat of match-fixing. Another key measure is greater cooperation among all stakeholders. Sportsbooks, suppliers, regulators, leagues and federations must find better ways of working together to help identify and suspend trading on games that may have been targeted for manipulation

So, while we have made progress in our fight against match-fixing, we must continue to work together with all stakeholders to increase cooperation and communication, so we remain ever vigilant against the scourge of sports corruption.

No

Vladimir Krupchuk, head of live trading, Parimatch Tech

The war with match-fixing has not yet been won yet and will probably never be.

The willingness for instant enrichment is part of human nature. Many people have a dream to buy a lottery ticket and win millions in one minute. Of course, very little are lucky.

Therefore, people find other ways to get rich instantly. There will always be a thirst for profit, for quick enrichment, which means match-fixing in sports (the opportunity to steal money from bookmakers) will exist.

Given the development of technology, now almost every match has a video broadcast. The number of match-fixing incidents has decreased. After all, it is harder to organise fraud when there is a recording of the games, live broadcasts and suspicious actions of players on the field are vivid.

But during the quarantine, bookmakers faced a new problem: deficiency of high-level competitions. Therefore, sports federations began to organise semi-professional, amateur competitions in many sports: table tennis, badminton, tennis, basketball, volleyball, esports and others.

In such competitions, the players’ fees are not too high and match-fixing can give the opportunity to earn a year’s salary in one match.

Both bookmakers and tournament organisers have gained experience in how to deal with match-fixing.

Despite the fact that bookmakers compete with each other, in such important aspects as the fight against match-fixing we are in the same boat. If the rush in bets on a match is more active than usual, bookmakers often share this information with each other. In this case, bookmakers turn to the independent organisations (e.g., Federbet), which investigates and eliminates match-fixing.

We at Parimatch try not to bring matches to the line where suspicious activity is possible. We promptly analyse all accepted bets and stop events that are contractual in nature. We cooperate with companies that organise tournaments and provide them with the information they need to fight match-fixing. Accordingly, these companies carry out scheduled inspections of players on the polygraph.

Bookmakers usually have a so-called ‘black’ list of players, people who were disqualified from sports and were caught in match-fixing. The fight continues!