Sportradar Integrity Services‘ annual report for 2022 has offered positive news for the North American betting industry as the region was one of only two continents to not post a yearly increase in suspicious betting activity in sports.
Titled Betting Corruption and Match-Fixing in 2022, the report noted that, whilst Europe (630 events), Asia and South America have seen suspicious sporting fixtures rise during 2022 compared to 2021, North America witnessed a decline on that metric with just 24 suspicious fixtures.
Globally, the number of suspicious matches increased by 34%, however, in North America, it declined by 25%.
The report also found that, in total, there were 1,212 suspicious matches in 2022, across 12 sports and 92 countries from a pool of 850,000 fixtures. Sportradar did note that whilst it marks an increase on 2021, 99.5% of sporting events are free from match-fixing.
Breaking down the suspicious activity by sport, soccer was the leader with 775 suspicious matches, followed by basketball with 220, and baseball with 75. Aside from soccer, there has been an increase of 236% in suspicious betting activity in global sport.
Sportradar Integrity Services also detailed an improvement in its Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS), with the introduction of artificial intelligence.
AI helped to detect 438 suspicious matches during 2022 with its ability to increase the number of data points processed for each match the company monitors to over 500. AI now monitors odds, turnover and statistical data related to each fixture processed through the system.
Andreas Krannich, Managing Director at Sportradar Integrity Services, said: “We’ve taken an even more proactive approach to uncover match-fixing in 2022, from implementing a new AI model to developing more formal working relationships with bookmakers through the launch of our Integrity Exchange, which resulted in more than 300 alerts.
“Our technology enables us to monitor more matches on a deeper level, providing more precise and accurate insights to help aid partners, clients and the wider sports industry in efforts to safeguard sporting events from corruption. We look forward to supporting even more sports federation and law enforcement partners in 2023.”
