February 2 – The ESSA, the sports betting integrity body whose members are regulated bookmakers, has reported in its 2016 annual report just 130 cases of suspicious betting activity with just 16 in football.
The figures look remarkably low in terms of the known match-fixing that has taken place in football over the year. 15 of the 16 matches reported by the ESSA were in Europe. And this is what makes the ESSA numbers look like the tip of the ice-berg. Just in Asia the AFC stepped in in more than one case to ban players actually during an confederation championship finals tournament.
The ESSA figures may be lower because its member are the larger bookmakers who have much stronger anti-fraud systems for in-play betting. Bookmakers are generally very reluctant to talk about match-fixing as, although they are usually the financial victims of the fraud, they feel that it damages their business and reputations with gamblers.
ESSA members spend €50 million annually in compliance and internal security systems in order to help combat fraud.
Despite the figures being lower than perhaps would have been expected, ESSA chairman, Mike O’Kane, said: “The figures show that the dangers from the misuse of insider information and match-fixing persist for betting operators. As the sector’s representative body on betting integrity issues, ESSA continues to meet with key stakeholders to discuss practical and proportionate actions. We hold positions on a number of major betting policy working groups and match-fixing programmes to do just that.”
Looking to the future he added: “ESSA will continue to be an ardent and vocal supporter of responsible regulated operators and utilise our alert system to protect our growing list of members, consumers and sports from betting related corruption. We intend to progress a number of constructive actions in this area during 2017 and in particular work closer with sports governing bodies and rights holders on more collaborative relationships.”
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