Tennis accounts for a third of suspicious bets in IBIA Q1 report

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has reported 42 ‘suspicious betting’ cases during Q1 of 2022, with 14 of these being placed on tennis matches.

When compared to the 69 cases in Q4 2021, the data displayed that the 2022 total is a reduction of 39%, which is a similar decrease against Q1 2021 during which 64 alerts were made.

Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, explained: “Alerts continue to fluctuate from quarter to quarter, but it is nevertheless welcome that Q1 saw a sizeable fall in suspicious betting, and potential corrupt activity, on IBIA members’ markets. 

“That drop is more noticeable given that those alerts come from a substantially widened membership base in the first three months of 2022, with the association set to become the leading integrity provider in the newly opened markets of the Netherlands and Ontario, and pushing across US states. 

“That growth means that IBIA’s leading global integrity network is now significantly above the $137bn in annual betting turnover reported in 2021.”   

Breaking it down, over 80% of the alerts reported during the quarter consisted of tennis (14 alerts), football (10) and table tennis (10), with the remainder covering volleyball (4), pool (3) and esports (1). 

Utilising the organisation’s anti-corruption tool that detects and reports suspicious activity on its members’ betting markets, European sporting events continued to show the highest number of alerts with 55% of the Q1 total, followed by Asia with 24%. 

Furthermore, there has been a 57% decrease in tennis alerts (14) reported in Q1 compared to 33 in Q4 2021, whilst 50% of table tennis alerts came from matches played in Germany (five of 10).

Moreso, there were a total of 23 countries where alerts on sporting events were reported during Q1, meanwhile six alerts were reported on six different sports.

Earlier this year, the IBIA published that the number of betting alerts recorded in 2021 fell to 239 which was a 13% decline on the year prior. This was part of a wider trend ‘consistent in recent years’ which has seen the average number of betting alerts annually standing at 240 between 2018 and 2020.