ESSA reports 50 suspicious betting cases in first quarter
International betting integrity body ESSA has revealed that it reported 50 cases of suspicious wagering during the first three months of the year.
The amount represents an increase on 27 in the opening quarter of 2017; with tennis again the most reported sport this year, generating 27 reports on its own.
Football was ranked second with 11 suspicious betting reports, followed by table tennis with four cases, two for both badminton and volleyball, and one each for basketball, beach volleyball, ice hockey and esports.
The quarterly publication comes after ESSA earlier this year released a report for the whole of 2017, during which it reported 226 cases of suspicious betting.
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.”
Related article: ESSA reports 266 suspicious betting cases in 2017