The senior account executive at Genius Sports and director of the Brazilian Association for the Defense of Sports Integrity (Abradie), gave a very didactic presentation regarding the importance of combating match-fixing as a way of guaranteeing the unpredictability of sport.
Buso introduced the entity to the senators, highlighting that Abradie was founded in early 2023 by some of the most important stakeholders involved in the sports scene and who are involved with the issue of sports betting.
He presented to the Sports Commission the three fundamental pillars that guide Abradie’s work:
1. Promotion of justice in sport – “basically the monitoring and use of technology to alert sporting entities, government and police, about practices identified as potentially suspicious”
2. Education and awareness – “there is no point in having alerts, receiving reports and not doing proactive education work”
3. Best practices – “Abradie has some important players that do this in Brazil, such as the National Futsal League, the Women's Basketball League, the NBB and Athletico Paranaense, in addition to Genius Sports, adopting mechanisms already established around the world”.
Buso explained that one of Abradie's main founding members is Genius Sports, a technology company that monitors matches for more than 150 sporting entities around the world, such as the Premier League and Bundesliga, among others, in addition to the NBB and CBV, in Brazil.
“Our analyzes allow us to issue alerts in real time and this is essential to contribute to entities involved in sports and regulatory bodies,” he said.
According to him, sports betting houses are also victims of match-fixing and for this reason they were also involved in founding the entity.
“Brazil, from 2014 to date, is in fourth place with the most alerts around the world, with 319,” which demonstrates the relevance of the topic, given the growth of sports betting activity in the country.
According to the director of Abradie and executive of Genius Sports, “in 2023 alone, bookmakers contacted Genius Sports to point out that 78 games had manipulation alerts.”
He explained that the monitoring takes place, in Genius Sports, by two founders of Abradie, through a server that receives the two games, two betting markets and an artificial intelligence system. “This ecosystem measures what can happen and the alerts are only sent when distortions have been detected in gambling movements.”
According to him, “everything can be sent to the government so that there is effective control of everything or that involves a competition.”
In any case, only these tools are not sufficient to combat the manipulation of results. “At Abradie, we understand education and awareness as fundamental for Brazil to have an integral sports betting sector and for sports to be protected.”
“For this reason, Abradie accompanies competition regulations and technical and legal aspects of regulations of the sports betting sector around the world to show how good practices have been implemented in other countries,” Buso concluded.
Source: GMB
