GMLS Reports a 70% Surge in Suspicious Sports Betting Activity Alerts for 2020

The Global Lottery Monitoring System (GLMS), the world-renown integrity body for the detection and analysis of suspicious sporting activities has released its Annual Monitoring and Intelligence Report to offer insight into 2020’s state of sports betting integrity. Per the recently published report, the GLMS sent out a total of 1,113 alerts in the just concluded calendar year, to its members and partners which include sportsbook operators and major sports governing bodies globally.

936 of the alerts generated by the global sports integrity watchdog came before game kick-off, whereas 27 were generated while the matches were in progress and 150 of the alerts came after the final whistle.

From last year’s report, 727 alerts came from Europe, followed by Asia with 191 whereas South and North America followed with 90 and 64 alerts generated from the system respectively. The pattern for the top three regions was generally the same compared to the previous year, only that there was a significant increase in the volume of alerts. Moving on to Africa, only 27 alerts were generated while Oceania was the only region with single-digit GLMS system triggers at 7. In addition, 11 of the total alerts were tagged as ‘international’ last year.

Soccer Had the Highest Number of Alerts in 2020

Looking at the report’s match alerts that were sent to GLMS partners, a total of 162 alerts came from 126 matches cutting across different sports. Some of the match-related alerts were sent to more than one organization or affiliated member of the sports integrity monitoring body, and this is part of the reason why more alerts were generated in the past 12 months compared to the same period one year ago.

As has always been the case, soccer, or rather what people from all other parts of the world call football except Americans, had the highest number of matches reported, with a total of 110 of the generated match alerts in 2020. 44 of the football match reports were sent to FIFA, the world’s premier governing body of the sport, and 38 of them were transmitted to UEFA, Europe’s top administrative organization for football.

The remaining suspicious alerts from soccer matches, 28 in total, were generated to notify local and international gaming authorities and law enforcement agencies for the respective jurisdictions.

Additionally, oversight organizations for other sports such as the Tennis Integrity Unit (TUI), the Swiss Lottery and Betting Board (COMLOT), and ESports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) altogether received a total of 73 alerts from the GLMS. Likewise, the ESports Integrity Coalition (ESIC) got 7 alerts from the globally recognized sports integrity body.

All in all, the total number of alerts generated from football was 832, making up for over 75% of the reported suspicious activity in 2020. Basketball followed soccer as the second-largest culprit after generating 134 alerts last year whereas ice hockey rounded up the top three with 55 alerts. Tennis was the third runner up in the most alerts list, generating a total of 50 alerts.

American Football was next with 11 alerts followed by volleyball and e-sports which recorded 10 alerts each, then handball comes in with 5 alerts. The sports that recorded the least number of alerts in 2020 were baseball with only 3 and table tennis, badminton, and sepak with a single alert each. We also have to give props to hockey, rugby, and cycling as they are the only sports that did not have any suspicious activity reported from GLMS’s records last year.

Besides the alerts that were generated by the GLMS, the integrity unit also received 58 special requests for detailed integrity reports from partners and members.  

GLMS’ Metric for Flagging Suspicious Sporting Activity

Before creating a report, the GLMS follows a thorough procedure whenever any irregularity in the patterns of sports betting activity is detected. Every generation of an alert is followed by exhaustive consultation with its members, and this is then accompanied by comprehensive investigations on any potential grounds that could offer enough evidence for the irregularity that was detected in the suspicious shift in odds.

From there, an alert is issued a specific color based on GMLS’s color management system that classifies the alert in order of urgency. Green is used for alerts that involve team-related news, minor odd changes, member information, farmer club, similar owner/sponsor, wrong starting prices, and motivation. Under the green category, the GMLS generated 715 alerts.

Following green is the yellow category whose severity is higher and it covers cases such as rumors of match-fixing (from news, forums, and social media), tournament structures, incomprehensible changes in odds, betfair volume, and member information. 217 alerts were reported to be in the yellow in 2020.

A red alert marks the highest case of severity and such an alert can be generated as a result of betfair patterns/volume, match-fixing rumors from a named source, and suspicious changes in odds. Last year, there were 86 red alerts!

Based on 2020’s Annual Monitoring and Intelligence Report, the most common reason that raised flags was team-related news, resulting in 402 alerts then significant odds change, a trigger that generated 192 alerts. The third most popular reason for triggering alerts was the wrong opening price that led to 140 alerts, followed by odds changes that needed further investigations which caused 114 alerts. No other GMLS triggering metric led to over 100 alerts.

The number of alerts increased by over 70% year over year compared to the 787 alerts that were reported in 2019 owing to the Coronavirus pandemic. However, as alarming as the surge may seem, it’s worth noting that that the highly infectious virus pushed the teams and sports bodies to make unplanned changes as needed. The GLMS even released a statement to shed more light on the situation saying that;

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“teams had to continuously revisit their strategies and team line ups, counting on their reserve or youth players to fill the gaps for senior players who tested positive or were quarantined.”

And as you might have already noticed, roughly 67% of these alerts were marked green, meaning that they were generally not threatening to the integrity of sports.