Online Sportsbooks Face the Threat of Match-Fixing

Sports betting is an age-old form of gambling, and the sportsbook industry has a huge online following. Forecasts show that the online gambling industry will reach a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.05% for the period 2020 – 2027, and according to Statista, 40.3% of global online gambling revenue comes from sports betting.

Since the US Supreme Court ruled online sports betting as a legal federal practice, the industry experienced massive growth. Match-fixing has unfortunately also been around for nearly as long as bookmakers and as the industry evolves, so does cheating.

 An Overview of Sports Betting

Making a wager on the outcome of an event has been around since ancient Rome. It began around 2,000 years ago with betting on which chariot will win a race. Eighteenth-century Britain modernised this practice by applying it to horse races. In recent times, we can wager on the outcome of a live-streamed video game. As with many other industries, sports betting became a lot more accessible and popular because of the internet.

The global online gambling market had a $53.7 billion value in 2019. Despite the worldwide economic crisis because of COVID-19, predictions show it may double in worth by the end of 2023. Online sportsbooks could reach a staggering $140 billion by 2028, according to a report released by Grand View Research. Esports has become exceptionally popular and in 2019, it was worth $1.1 billion and had a predicted growth rate of 24.4% until 2027.

It is no wonder that match-fixing may be a concern for many gamblers. With technological and communication advances, cheaters have more opportunities to commit fraud.

 Match-fixing in the UK and US

International research and data analytics group, YouGov, recently conducted a poll titled “How does match-fixing influence betting and viewership?”. The survey had 2,400 participants, of which 50% was British adults and the other 50% was American adults.

An overall 43% of UK bettors stated that match-fixing has some influence on their betting and 55% of US bettors noted the same. 26% of British participants and 22% of American participants stated that their wagering is somewhat influenced by it. Strangely enough, only 17% of UK punters state that match-fixing highly affects their betting activities, as opposed to the 33% of US gamblers that selected this to be true.

Of the 1,200 UK gamblers, 24% think that match-fixing is increasing in professional sport, 33% believe it was not increasing or decreasing and a mere 8% believed it to be in a decline. When asked who should deal with eradicating this problem, 49% said that sports governing bodies should have the responsibility. Other respondents believed the government, sports teams, and leagues should deal with it.

The vast majority of participants, 71%, stated that match-fixing would cause them to stop watching sport altogether.

 Is Match-fixing On the Rise?

Sportsradar Integrity Services, a global sports technology company, conducted research through its betting monitoring system – the Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS). The company is a partner to over 100 sporting federations and leagues and found suspicious activity across 12 different sports in over 70 countries, since the beginning of the pandemic.

The UFDS technology detected 1,100 matches that have signs of potential match-fixing, and these include 500 football matches. This includes over 70 eSports matches, across 5 game titles.

 Rotten Apples

Unregulated gambling markets leave an open door for frauds to take advantage and unwitting players will be none the wiser when cheats throw a match. If match-fixing continues to increase, it has the potential to spoil the whole bunch.