Earlier this week, a second annual Sportsradar report outlined the extent of suspicious betting patterns within sport throughout 2022, and their finding highlight a sizeable increase year-on-year.
The report title titled “Betting, Corruption and Match-fixing in 2022,” divulges the uglier side of sport, where a total of 1,212 matches were flagged for suspicious activity.
The research carried out across 12 different sports and 92 separate countries represents an increase of 34% on 2021’s figures, although relative to the number of events analysed (99.5% clean), the number of suspicious instances remains under 1% for each sport.
Sportsradar says suspicious activity in relation to match-fixing, corruption and betting reached its highest annual level in 2022, and the number of separate occurrences has exceed 1,000 for the first time ever.
When delving deeper into their findings, football remains plagued by corruption with a reported 775 instances, which accounts for just over 60% of the total annual figure. Elsewhere, the most notable rise was found in basketball, which ranked behind football as the second-most suspicious sport and one of only two to have been flagged over 200 times – this represents an increase of 250% on 2021’s report.
It is also interesting to note that Europe holds by far the biggest share of the geographical make-up with 630 suspicious reports, a monumental leap from the 240 found in Asia. The only two continents that didn’t see a rise in cases from 2021 were North America and Oceania.
In a foreword from Sportsradar before presenting their findings, they said: “In 2022, Sportradar Integrity Services data and reports helped to launch and/or support the process which led to a record 169 sporting or criminal sanctions against those deemed guilty of cheatingsport and breaking the law.
We are always on hand to support our sporting partners and law enforcement in bringing to justice those responsible for match-fixing, and this need is as great as ever given the historic rise in suspicious match numbers we have seen this year.
