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Sportradar Integrity Services is a division of Sportradar that provides global solutions for sports integrity. The company’s second annual report, “Betting corruption and match-fixing in 2022,” has been released. It revealed that the company found 1212 suspicious matches across 12 sports, and in 92 countries out of the 850,000 matches it monitors globally.
The total number of suspicious matches, while showing an increase of 34% since 2021, indicates that match-fixing is a very low percentage in global sport. The data shows that match-fixing is not widespread in 99.5% of sporting events, and only 1% of them are suspicious.
Sportradar’s Artificial Intelligence has enabled 438 matches to be detected thanks to its integration with the Universal Fraud Detection System. This technology has allowed for 500+ data points to be processed for each match, including data about the odds, turnover, and statistical data. This process is ongoing throughout the entire life cycle of a match’s bet markets. It starts when it is offered and ends when it ends. This equates to an analysis of 30 billion odds changes annually from 600+ betting companies.
AI can also analyze account-level betting data in order to confirm any suspicious micro-level betting activity. To ensure that the model can detect new match-fixing methods, it is regularly retrained using the most recent data. After all markets have settled, the model calculates a prediction about whether the match may be suspicious or not. This provides our analysts with all the information they need to make an informed decision.
Aside from technological advances, the number and severity of sporting and criminal sanctions that the company supported its partners in 2022 increased from 72 to169. This is a reflection of a focus on match-fixing by leagues or federations in order to protect the integrity of the sport. Sport federations and criminal courts imposed sanctions on those found guilty of cheating in sport and violating the law using Sportradar Integrity Services’ evidence.
These are the key findings from Sportradar’s integrity report:
- Sportradar’s AI model for its UFDS 2022 identified 438 suspicious matches (36 percent of the annual total). This was a result of the large amount of data Sportradar has about suspicious betting activity, and demonstrates the importance of technology in monitoring.
- The highest number of suspicious soccer matches was 775. However, one of the most important trends in 2022 was the sharp increase in suspicious basketball matches (220), an increase of approximately 250% over 2021.
- Europe continues to be the most suspicious match-prone region (630), followed by Asia (220) and South America (2225) across all sports. The number of suspicious matches in every region has increased by at least 5%, except Oceania and North America.
- Since 2021, the trend of lower-level competitions being affected by suspicious soccer matches has continued. In 2022, 52% suspicious matches in soccer came from the third or lower tier, which includes regional leagues and youth competitions.
Andreas Krannich is the Managing Director for Sportradar Integrity Services. He stated: “We have taken a more proactive approach to uncovering match-fixing 2022, starting with implementing an AI model and developing formal working relationships to bookmakers through our Integrity Exchange. This resulted in over 300 alerts.
“Our technology allows us to monitor more matches at a deeper level. This provides more precise and exact insights to aid partners, clients, and the wider sport industry in efforts to protect sporting events from corruption. We are looking forward to supporting more sports federations and law enforcement partners in 2023.”
