Sports data intelligence specialist Sportradar AG has reportedly announced that global football continues to be the sport most at risk of corruption with 655 suspicious wagers having been placed since the start of the year.

According to a Thursday report from Yahoo! News, the Nasdaq-listed innovator revealed that these potentially fishy bets were detected with help from its Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) bet monitoring service, which was premiered in February as an evolution of its earlier Fraud Detection System advance. The source detailed that the pioneer has moreover uncovered in excess of 1,100 possibly suspicious wagers on football from around the world since April of last year after sportsbetting had largely moved online in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Pervasive presence:

Sportradar AG reportedly disclosed that its UFDS innovation has been utilized to detect suspicious betting activities across twelve sports in more than 70 countries over the course of the last 18 months. Regarding soccer and the company purportedly explained that approximately 40% of the feasibly dubious gambles involved games from third-tier leagues and below, which points to the growing influence of illicit ‘fixers’ around these lower-level contests.

eSports exploitation:

Andreas Krannich (pictured) serves as the Integrity Services Managing Director for Sportradar AG and he reportedly divulged that eSports has also come to his company’s attention owing to a rapid rise in the prevalence of potentially suspicious wagers. For this entertainment vertical and the expert purportedly noted that the UFDS advance had flagged over 70 likely dodgy bets spread across five titles since April of last year with almost 60% of these having been detected from January.

Broader bunch:

In addition to soccer and eSports, Sportradar AG reportedly asserted that its UFDS service had detected suspicious activities in 37 tennis games, 19 basketball contests and eleven table tennis competitions. These purportedly sat alongside potentially dodgy bets on nine ice hockey match-ups and six cricket tests with the majority having occurred in Europe.

Gratis gift:

Finally, Sportradar AG reportedly finished by pronouncing that it ‘has made a significant investment’ in its UFDS innovation recently and now intends to start making the service available to sports federations, leagues and government authorities across the globe ‘for free’.

Reportedly read a statement from Krannich…

“The reason for this is that we are committed to supporting the sustainability of global sports and using data and technology for good. Match-fixing is evolving and those behind it are diversifying their approach, both in the sports and competitions they target, and the way they make approaches to athletes such as the rise in digital approaches.”