IBIA: UK accounted for 22% of all suspicious betting alerts in Q3 2023

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) reported 50 instances of suspicious betting activity across eight sports during Q3 2023.

The sports monitoring body revealed tennis produced the highest number of alerts during the quarter with 15, equating to 30% of total alerts.

Football was the second-most flagged sport, with 13 alerts, while table tennis had eight alerts. 

Darts was in fourth place in Q3 with seven alerts, with all of those alerts coming from the UK. 

Esports registered three alerts, while bowls was responsible for two and basketball and greyhound racing recorded one alert each. 

The Q3 total of 50 alerts was the same figure as what was reported in Q2, but it is a 41% decrease on the revised Q3 2022 total of 85 alerts. 

When breaking the alerts down by region, 60% came from Europe, with the UK representing the highest number of alerts per country with 11. 

The 11 alerts in the UK during Q3 amount to just two less than the number of alerts in the whole of 2022 for the country. Darts accounted for 63.6% of all the alerts in the UK. 

Elsewhere, 14% of alerts came from South America, with almost all of them coming in football matches. A further 10% of alerts came from Asia, 6% from North America and 4% from Africa.

Khalid Ali, IBIA CEO, said: “The quarter saw a continued reduction in alerts with a more than a 30% decrease in the first three quarters relative to 2022, with tennis a major contributory factor. 

“During the quarter, IBIA and the International Tennis Integrity Agency (ITIA) co-hosted a best practice integrity seminar in New York with many of the premier sports and betting operators in the US. 

“That cross-sector cooperative approach underlines the strength of our relationship with tennis, as acknowledged by the ITIA, and our shared commitment to working in partnership to combat corruption in that sport,” he added.