Less Match-Fixing Risk for European Bookies
According to British betting firms, European bookies are less likely to be at risk from gamblers hoping to profit from match-fixing than bookies in Asia. This is due to a strict integrity system, transparent audit trails and information sharing with sports federations.
Bookmakers in Europe are less likely to be affected by match fixing than their Asian counterparts.
Both William Hill and Ladbrokes are members of the European Sports Security Association (ESSA) which exists to detect and report suspicious betting patters.
Last year ESSA identified 69 irregular incidents of which 8 turned out to be suspicious. Almost half of the alerts came from football betting.
Mike O’Kane, ESSA Chairman, said that a number of triggers “hopefully keep the bad people out of the licensed operators. If you want to fix a match for serious financial gain, hopefully you steer clear of European operators. We have 15 sets of eyes looking at transactions.”
Kate Miller, PR Director at William Hill, said that the company’s “in-house risk management systems provide a sensitive barometer for all our trading markets and will flag-up any anomalies or unexpected betting.”
According to O’Kane Asian operators are more at risk due to the high volume of betting across the continent. But all bookies agree that it is essential to share more information to effectively battle corruption.
