Andy Cunningham, Director Global Partnerships, Integrity Services Sportradar
Sportradar Integrity Services is a leading supplier of monitoring, intelligence, education, and consultancy solutions for sports organisations, state authorities, and law enforcement agencies to support them in the fight against match-fixing and corruption. Trusted and relied on by more than 100 sports’ governing bodies and leagues around the world and staffed with executives who have implemented integrity policies for the world’s largest sports bodies and leagues, it is firmly established as a market leader in the field of sporting integrity.
“In an ideal world, match- fixing and betting related
corruption would be eliminated from all sports, but the reality is - and what we’ve seen for many years now - is that there are always going to be people searching for new ways to
profit from this illegal activity. At Sportradar we continue to play our part in the fight against this cancer and are
continuing to invest in evolving our technology to give the maximum chance of detecting attempts to corrupt sport.” Andy Cunningham
Andy, what new methods and schemes are criminals coming up with to manipulate the results of matches?
Te Covid-19 pandemic led to match-fixers looking for new competitions to target when the vast majority of established sport ground to a halt, and the financial hardships brought about by Covid-19 has made sport more susceptible to corruption. In the past 20 months, we have seen first-hand how criminals are targeting all levels of sport, including competitions that were previously known to be low risk. We are witnessing a new wave of more direct digital approaches to players and athletes, For instance,
our Intelligence & Investigation team have helped sports governing bodies investigate several cases of individuals approaching athletes on social media, trying to engage them in match-fixing activity. Tis has been a growing trend over recent years.
Te ease of access to athletes is greater than it has ever been and these platforms are breaking down the barriers previously in place between athletes and fans, but also unfortunately, those with corrupt intentions. Tankfully, many of these approaches are reported by athletes to the governing bodies, but this is not a ‘catch all’ situation, so sporting authorities must continue to address this topic in education and awareness raising with athletes.
What can be done to prevent match fixing? How do you keep up with these new methods and flag up suspicious activities?
In an ideal world, match-fixing and betting related corruption would be eliminated from all sports, but the reality is - and what we’ve seen for many years now - is that there are always going to be people searching for new ways to profit from this illegal activity. At Sportradar we continue to play our part in the fight against this cancer and are continuing to invest in evolving our technology to give the maximum chance of detecting attempts to corrupt sport. Tis includes further utilising Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology to sift through and analyse billions of data sets from global betting markets. Our Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) has detected over 1,200 suspicious matches in the past 20 months, with over 750 to-date in 2021.
Our approach to tackling some of the newer threats that are happening on social media and online includes utilising open-source intelligence investigations to assist investigating authorities to uncover those behind the online accounts who approach and corrupt athletes, tracing them to real world identities. We can then make a series of recommendations to the organisers based on the information we uncover and support them to pursue a course of action.
Could you tell us more about Sportradar’s Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) and how it works?
Te UFDS is the core bet monitoring system that has detected match-fixing for over 15 years and been verified by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) as ‘reliable evidence.’ It is our conviction that the UFDS should be universally available for all, irrespective of resources available. Tis is why, as of October 2021, the UFDS service is offered free of charge to ALL of sport.
Te UFDS is today used by more than 100 sporting body partners globally from over 25 different sports.
WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS P49
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