After months of intensifying reports of increasing match-fixing, Sportradar has been able to pull all the relevant data together and note an actual decline in these incidences throughout 2024, Casino Guru News found out in a press statement shared with the media via email.
This is one of the conclusions drawn as part of the Integrity in Action 2024 Global Analysis & Trends published by Sportradar Integrity Service, a unit operating under the main Sportradar brand, and squarely focused on protecting the integrity of games.
Significantly, Sportradar Integrity Services was able to observe and monitor 850,000 matches in 70 sports across the globe in 2024, and reported 1,108 suspicious patterns, a 17% decline from a year prior in 2023. Once again, the highest number of suspicious patterns were flagged in Europe, although there was a 34% in the suspicious signals from a year prior – 439 in 2024 compared to 668 in 2023.
Africa also saw a 36% decline in the number of suspicious sports performances, where the number of such cases decreased from 108 in 2023 to 69 in 2024. Naturally, the bulk of those suspicious signs across all regions and nationalities came from soccer – arguably the world’s most popular athletic competition.
For the year 2024, there were a total of 721 suspicious patterns flagged, which was still an 18% decline from 881 in 2023, for example, maintaining the downward trend. This downward trend may be explained by many factors. Sports leagues have become increasingly aware of the issue and have conducted integrity training as well as improved monitoring to root out fraud in sports.
Companies such as Sportradar have been able to deploy advanced monitoring systems, such as the Universal Fraud Detection System, which has been adopted by scores of global leagues and bodies.
Of course, Sportradar is not monitoring all competitions worldwide, leaving some room for error, but the report has been consistently drawing from a huge data set to produce statistically relevant trends.
Commenting on the latest findings, Sportradar EVP for Integrity, Rights Protection & Regulatory Services, Andreas Krannich, said that there has been indeed a notable reduction in suspicious signals in 2024, and that in itself was a reason to be optimistic. However, Krannich advised against complacency.
"Our investment in innovation combined with data insights into the betting industry and continued education on integrity are at the forefront of keeping pace with the ever-evolving global sports integrity landscape," he added, urging stakeholders to remain vigilant.
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