Sportium, a major operator in the Spanish-licensed market, has joined international betting integrity body ESSA. Sportium becomes the fourth operator to join ESSA so far this year and increases the betting integrity association’s membership to 22 leading regulated operators.

The move serves to further strengthen ESSA’s global integrity alert and reporting system. Sportium is a leading multi-channel licensed betting operator in Spain. It offers over 60,000 bets each week through online and retail betting facilities and is the official betting partner of Spanish football’s premier La Liga competition.

The operator has also been seeking to grow its business across Latin America with a digital entry into the Mexican market at the start of 2015. “Sportium is a major player in the Spanish market and I’m delighted they have decided to join ESSA” said Khalid Ali, ESSA Secretary General. “The continuing growth in our membership base is a clear sign of the increasing recognition of many major operators to the significant advantages that can be achieved from acting in partnership with ESSA to identify, disrupt and report betting related fraud.

Sportium has a number of important business partnerships with the sporting sector, highlighted by our sponsorship of one of the world’s foremost sporting competitions in La Liga. We therefore place great value in maintaining the integrity of sport and to preventing fraud in betting markets. Sportium’s link-up with ESSA underlines our commitment to that and to protecting our business and consumers from the adverse impact of illicit betting activity,” stated Mark Fowler of Sportium.

ESSA holds positions on match-fixing policy forums at the European Commission, Council of Europe and the IOC. It is driving a number of activities aimed at addressing match-fixing, including a player education programme with EU Athletes (see here) and an international project, entitled “Keep Crime out of Sport”, led by the Council of Europe and funded by the European Commission (see here). ESSA’s Q3 2016 integrity report, along with those of previous quarters, can be accessed here.