Many Sports Left Behind in Global Match-Fixing Crisis

Football, tennis and basketball account for most anti-match fixing efforts worldwide? Table tennis, badminton, handball, even curling and darts, are suffering as a result.

There are many match-fixing databases out there, tracking which matches or games are showing suspicious results or odd betting patterns. Some are kept by the giants of the sporting world. Others are compiled privately by individual sports integrity observers curious to see just how bad things are getting.

World of Crime accessed one such database, kindly provided by one well-known integrity expert, tracking suspicious matches across a range of sports. Between May 29 and June 30, 2024, potentially indicative betting patterns and results were found across six sports: basketball, cricket, football, table tennis, tennis and volleyball.

Unsurprisingly, football matches dominated. 

Forty-nine out of the 68 suspicious entries concerned football matches, eight were for basketball, four for volleyball, four for table tennis, three for tennis, and one for cricket. Football accounted for 72% of the total.