The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has reported 76 cases of suspicious activity to relevant authorities during Q3 of 2022. Interestingly, only one case has been reported in North America and still a relatively small number in South America with seven alerts.
Europe accounted for the overwhelming majority with 49% of alerts flagged by the IBIA, followed by Asia (11%) and Africa (9%). North American operators may be relieved to know they only encompassed 1.3% of suspicious betting activities. The single case brought up by the IBIA was in the Dominican Republic’s tennis betting sector.
While South America proved itself to be more vulnerable to problematic betting integrity, it still only made up 9.2% of the global total. The problems it did experience were mainly in soccer – two cases were flagged in Brazil and Chile respectively while one was reported in Peru. IBIA also reported suspicious activity in Brazilian basketball.
Brazil has become a target market for large sportsbooks and sportsbook suppliers in recent years, due to the potentially lucrative nature of this as-yet untapped and unregulated market. Among others, Sportingtech partnered with a local operator to provide its sportsbook supplying services to the Brazilian market, and is expected to go live there in 2023.
However, responsible gaming remains an issue there. In December 2018, with Federal Law No. 13,756, Brazil legalized (but did not regulate) online fixed-odds sports wagering which resulted in four years of rapid growth.
Still, despite the high levels of demand and pending legalization of sports betting, there is a real absence of regulations, licensing and oversight. Bets and games are types of contracts covered under the Brazilian Civil Code, but many have criticized this as a ‘partial solution’ that benefits (potentially unethical) offshore operators.
While IBIA’s Q3 report showed North and South America were relatively responsible markets globally, it did highlight problems with integrity in betting in Brazil.
