A new study finds the issue is affecting 10 sports popular with gamblers.
Whether it was former NBA referee Tim Donaghy going to prison in 2008 for refereeing games on which he bet or the €2 million match fixing scandal that rocked German soccer in 2005, the integrity of sports was under a microscope in the aughts.
But time has resulted in that microscope losing some focus, and the public rarely hears any reference to match fixing anymore, as if the practice of rigging games is a relic of the past.
And now that there is big money being poured into sports through gambling, the gambling hubs in Las Vegas and big sports betting companies like DraftKings (DKNG) – Get DraftKings Inc Class A Report could be in trouble based on a new report.
Sports are built on fair competition. Opponents playing by the same set of rules in order to achieve some goal is what drives these billion dollar leagues.
But what happens when the integrity of the competition is compromised? And what about the billions wagered on the games?
A new study suggests that “match fixing” reached an all-time high in 2021.
Match Fixing in 2021 Reached New Levels
Sportradar Integrity Services, a global sports integrity watchdog, released a report this week claiming suspicious activity in 903 matches in 2021 across 10 sports in 76 countries.
This record coincided with record levels of global sports betting handle, or the amount of money wagered by bettors, which Sportsradar estimates at more than €1.45 trillion ($1.58 trillion). Soccer accounted for more than half of that total (€745 billion).
Not coincidentally, soccer also featured the highest frequency of suspicious matches at a rate of one in every 201 fixtures. Maybe more surprisingly, esports events were the second least trustworthy with suspicious matches found in one in every 384 matches. Basketball saw on in 498 matches flagged for suspicious activity.
Sportradar estimated that the profit from the match-fixing of these events last year reached €165 million ($180 million).
“There is no easy short-term solution to the match-fixing issue, and we’re likely to see similar numbers of suspicious matches in 2022, if not more. As the market has developed, so the threat of match fixing has evolved,” said Andreas Krannich, Sportsradar’s managing director.
Sportradar did not immediately return a request for comment on its methodology for determining which matches were suspicious or whether it has been in contact with the major sports leagues about its findings.
U.S. Sports Gambling Market is Growing
Americans were betting as much as $150 billion on sports every year when it was illegal outside of Nevada, the American Gaming Association has reported.
When the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act banned sports wagering in all states except Delaware, Montana, Nevada and Oregon back in 1993, Nevada was the only state with the infrastructure to satisfy gamblers.
But when the Supreme Court overturned the law in 2018 it opened the flood gates for sports bettors. And while the financial windfall from taxing gambling is lucrative — states brought in over $700 million in tax revenue between June 2018 and November 2021, according to LegalSportsReport.com — the entire apparatus is built on the idea that the sports people are betting on are on the up and up.
“Now, would-be corruptors take an increasingly direct approach to match-fixing and betting corruption, with athletes messaged directly via social-media platforms. We can take what we observed in 2021 and ask ourselves as fans of sport, what lessons can we learn?,” Krannich said.
