International betting integrity body ESSA (Sports Betting Integrity) reported 50 cases of suspicious betting to the relevant authorities during the first quarter (Q1) of 2018. The Q1 cases involved 9 sports with: 27 cases in tennis, 11 cases in football, 4 in table tennis, 2 each in badminton and volleyball, and one each in basketball, beach volleyball, ice hockey and eSports.

ESSA Secretary General Khalid Ali said: “The publication of the interim report into integrity issues in tennis has understandably focused attention on that sport. Tennis makes up over half of our alerts in the first quarter of 2018, but it is important to highlight that it is one of nine sports on which alerts were reported. Therefore ESSA has continued the expansion of its information sharing partnerships throughout the first quarter.

“This has seen important agreements concluded with the Rugby Football Union, International Cricket Council, State of Victoria Police, Portuguese gambling regulator and UEFA. In addition, ESSA’s betting integrity officer was seconded to the IOC to help monitor the Winter Olympic Games. This proved to be a resounding success and will hopefully pave the way for similar stakeholder engagement and integrity partnership working with other sports during their high-profile events.”

The Q1 report includes an article by European football’s governing body UEFA on the organisation’s policy to tackle match-fixing through a four-pillar approach encompassing: education, legal framework, monitoring and investigation, and sanctions. UEFA works alongside a range of partners to protect football’s integrity and the announcement covering the recent signing of an information sharing agreement MoU with ESSA.

ESSA holds positions on high-level betting policy forums at the European Commission, Council of Europe and the IOC.  It is driving a number of important initiatives aimed at addressing match-fixing and hosted an international betting integrity conference at Lords Cricket Ground at the end of last year, attended by over 150 senior officials from sports bodies, regulators and other key stakeholders.