The discovery of the betting scheme that manipulated actions in the games of the Brazilian Series A and B and State Championships raised a wave of questions about the regulation of bookmakers and ways to prevent fraud from being practiced to benefit gambling gangs. Currently, entities from all over the world of different sports rely on Sportradar's support to detect irregularities. Brazil, according to a survey by the company itself, is the record holder for suspicious football matches in 2022: 139.
News outlet Estadão found that the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) was notified about three matches in Série A last year under suspicion of manipulation, none of which are on the list of games formally denounced by the Public Ministry of Goiás. With a confidentiality agreement between the parties, it was not informed which matches are under suspicion.
To catch possible crimes, Sportradar has a monitoring system that brings together Artificial Intelligence and an extensive database, called the Universal Fraud Detection System. This system is capable of verifying the betting source accounts to sift through even small movements. All of them are 'reported' to their partners, such as the CBF. This suggests that the entity knew about these strange movements since last year.
“The application of this technology has increased to more than 500 the amount of data processed for each match that the company monitors, including odds, turnover and statistical data related to the game. This processing takes place continuously throughout the life cycle of football match betting markets, for example from the moment it is first offered until the moment it ends. Annually, this is equivalent to analyzing 30 billion changes in odds from more than 600 betting platforms,” informs Sportradar.
With this tool, the company is able to unravel probabilities, betting volume and statistical data. It can help to discover fraud or strange moves by bettors, such as high stakes in a single bet, such as any player being sent off or receiving a yellow card.
In 2022, 850,000 games from 70 sports in 92 countries were monitored, with 1,212 of these games being suspected of manipulation, all restricted to 12 sports. There was a 34% increase compared to the 2021 numbers.
The question fans ask is why the CBF did not act when it learned that there were strange movements related to 139 football matches in Brazil. Investigations do not begin with a complaint from the entity, but from the president of Vila Nova, in Goiás. Sought by Estadão, CBF did not inform the reason for its silence. Last week, its president, Ednaldo Rodrigues, asked the Minister of Justice, Flavio Dino, to initiate an investigation at the Federal Police, which has not yet been carried out.
“When suspicious matches are detected in Sportradar's UFDS (artificial intelligence program), a confidential report is written by our expert analysts and sent to our sports partners in a matter of days. These reports describe and detail the suspicious betting patterns, the team suspected of orchestrating the outcome (if it can be determined) and lead to further investigation, whether led by the sports federation itself or passed on to law enforcement. Sportradar can also provide more investigative support through our Intelligence and Investigation Services,” says to Estadão Tom Mace, Senior Vice President of Analytics and Data - he oversees Sportradar's global operations along with its integrity services.
Faced with suspicious movement on betting sites, Sportradar prepares reports for its customers. Preliminarily, the company sends a simpler text, up to 24 hours after the game on the websites, reporting the suspicion. A few days later, a more extensive and detailed report is delivered, combining technical and artificial intelligence analysis.
“In addition to clearly outlining suspect betting data and the analytical reasons why a match was classified as suspicious, our reports as standard contain possible investigative leads such as players, referees and coaches of potential interest. We can support our partners with their own investigations when requested. In fact, Sportradar has participated as an expert witness in cases that occurred in Brazil on several occasions during the last decade, helping police authorities and TJD (Court of Sports Justice) prosecutors to better understand the cases under investigation. However, it is not our role or remit as a service provider to decide and conduct formal investigations,” explains Mace.
How is the odd of a game defined?
Sportradar is not just a supervisory company. Its expertise in capturing statistical data is what allows it to act on this other front, identifying suspicious movements in bets. Bookmakers use this information to form the odds for each event in the game, such as goals, corners, penalties, cards and laterals, and other activities related to the matches. This same mechanism serves as a filter to detect irregularities and distortions on the platforms. It guarantees that all the information collected on Brazilian football has been passed on to its clients.
A quote is defined by the probability that such an event will occur. The chances of a goalkeeper scoring a goal, for example, are infinitely smaller than those of an attacker, except for exceptions such as archers responsible for penalty kicks and free kicks. Thus, if someone bets that a goalkeeper will score in a certain match, his chances of winning the prize are negligible, but if in fact the goal happens, the bettor will earn much more money.
FIFA, Conmebol (South America), Concacaf (North, Central America and the Caribbean), AFC (Asia) and CBF partner with Sportradar to detect games suspected of fraud. In other sports, important leagues also have links with the Swiss company, including the American NBA (basketball), NHL (ice hockey) and MLB (baseball), as well as the international motorsport federations (FIA), tennis (ITF) and basketball (FIBA) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) itself. All heavyweights in the sport.
Brazil holds the record for games in different sports suspected of fraud
According to a survey carried out by Sportradar last year, there were 152 games in the country, of different sports, suspected of manipulation of results by bookmakers. In football, there are 139 matches under suspicion, three of them in Serie A. Brazil was the country with the highest number of matches under suspicion, sharing the podium with Russia (92) and the Czech Republic (56), among the countries that have the sports data and statistics company monitoring service. The sport with the most matches listed as suspicious is football, followed by basketball and tennis.
Due to a confidentiality clause in the contract with the CBF, Sportradar cannot expose details of matches under suspicion of manipulation. None of them are among those already formally denounced by the MP-GO in Operation Maximum Penalty. After receiving the information, the CBF forwards it to the Superior Court of Sports Justice (STJD), which begins to investigate the evidence and decides whether to open an investigation.
According to Sportradar, the company has contributed to 89 sanctions in different cases of match-fixing in Brazil since 2016. Iranduba, from Amazonas, was demoted, fined and suspended that year after fraud was discovered, according to a report by the Sportradar, in the 7-0 loss to Amazonas, in the state tournament. Another notorious case ended in 2022. In 2015, Atlético Sorocaba lost to Santo André by 9 to 0 in a duel for the Campeonato Paulista Sub-20. Sportradar's protocol was triggered, the competent authorities alerted and the case went to Justice, which sentenced 11 people to ten years and eight months in prison for enticing players and managers in order to manipulate results. In tennis, Diego Matos was banned from the sport for involvement in the sale of results from his games.
“In fact, six football clubs were fined or downgraded from our betting monitoring reports provided to our partners. Eighty-three individuals were also sanctioned in cases supported by Sportradar Integrity Services, the majority of them being sporting sanctions such as bans and fines. However, there were also 27 arrests, as well as 15 arrests in cases that used our evidence,” Mace said.
Countries with the most matches suspected of match-fixing
Sports with more matches suspected of match-fixing
Sportradar was founded in 2001 in the city of Trondheim, Norway. The company is currently headquartered in St. Gallen, Switzerland, with 35 offices spread across 19 countries, and also has shares on Nasdaq, the New York Stock Exchange.
Source: Estadão
