IBIA Q1 Report Brings Up 40 Alerts Indicating Potentially Suspect Bets

Suspicious betting alerts recorded by IBIA Q1 Report show Europe is the worst offender, while football makes up for the largest number of suspect bets. (Image Courtesy of ibia.bet)

To curb corruption in sports betting, the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) monitors bets across 22 countries, and every quarter releases its findings.

2023’s Q1 2023 report contains a total of 40 alerts that indicate suspicious betting behaviour in 9 sports from the nations monitored.

The most were in football with 15 alerts making up 37.5% of the 40 recorded, while suspect betting in tennis was second with 12 alerts making up 30%.

Between these 2 sports, the percentage is concerning at 67.5%.

With that being said, the report shows that tennis warnings decreased by 50% year-on-year, so there’s some progress there.

As for continents, Europe has the worst figures. 24 out of 40 make up for 60% of the world’s suspicious betting activities. The joint lowest were the Americas with 4 (10%) alerts in total. However, if we split this into South America and North America, each had 2 (5%) alerts. Asia recorded 6 (15%) and Africa 4 (10%).

Another concerning area for the IBIA was the doubling in alerts from Spain. One-fifth or 20% of all alerts came from the Mediterranean country, meaning Q1 2023 outweighs the nation’s total number of alerts collected over all 4 quarters of 2022.

The 22 countries under the IBIA’s monitoring tools make up 50% of the legal global sports betting scene. In total, the revenue collected across these nations totals roughly 137 billion USD (124 billion Euros).

Football Number One in the Pack!

Being the world’s most popular sport, it comes as no surprise football comes out on top. It stands to reason that there was an alert in all 5 continents tracked by the IBIA. Europe saw the most alerts with the sport the clear favourite amongst betting fans, and also the continent records the highest level of betting

Other Sports Stats…

What about Suspicious Bets for Online Casinos?

Thanks to RNGs (Random Number Generators), Provably Fair algorithms, and rules applies to live dealer studios, plus checks carried out by live casino operators to ensure players cannot cheat due to a tilting roulette wheel or marked cards, there are rarely suspicious bets in iGaming.

• RNG Tests: RNGs under the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA), UK Gambling Commission (UKGC), Curacao licensing, Kahnawake Gaming Commission (KGC), and the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), must all pass a eCOGRA, GLI and/or BMM testing process. They must also hold ISO 27001 certificates. On top of this, the regulatory collect RTP (Return to Player) stats for all casino games on a monthly basis to ensure there is no funny business going on with RNGs. I.e., a game with a 97% RTP paying out 67% RTP would raise a serious red flag.
• Provaby Fair: This is a crypto algorithm that delivers game results. The beauty of this method of delivering game results is that it does so by logging the game results on an immutable blockchain record. After the game or betting round, the record is unencrypted so players can verify the results of every spin or betting round provided by the game was accurate. There are also crypto geeks who collate these records to check the RTPs of each game are as they should be. This is much like the licensing authorities who collect RTP info from the casinos.
• Live Dealer: All live casino games still need to have their software pass eCOGRA, GLI and/or BMM Test Labs certifications. Also, the software providers under a reputable licensing authority will usually have both an ISO 27001 and ISO 9001.

What is the difference between ISO 27001 and ISO 9001? ISO 27001 is a certification related to information security, which casinos and software providers go out of their way to obtain to prove customer data is safe, financial information is secure, and the games as well as casino have security software and processes in place to prevent cyber crime. An ISO 9001 certification is to show quality management for all games. Find out more via our best reputable online casino platforms guide.