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The betting fever is rampant worldwide. Predictions are made on almost every single event during a game or competition. The branch is an industry of tens of billions. That has consequences for sport.
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Vienna – Due to the growing importance of betting, sport is more exposed than ever to the risk of manipulation, according to the United Nations.
There are national and international networks “to manipulate competitions through bribery, coercion and threats to referees, players and club officials”, according to a study by the UN agency to combat crime (UNODC). The number of suspected cases has increased significantly in the past twenty years – “no country, no discipline and no level of play” has been spared, according to the report published on Thursday in Vienna.
The development is reinforced by the fact that criminal organizations use the betting business for money laundering. According to estimates, up to $ 140 billion each year would be fed back into the legal money cycle through sports betting, the agency said. “Given the volume of illegal betting, the industry is extremely attractive to transnational criminal groups as a means of laundering money.” Football games are popular targets for betting manipulation, especially in lower-class leagues.
Lots of illegal bets
Around 80 percent of sports and racing bets worldwide are illegal, according to the UNODC. They are operated via betting platforms that have no licenses or the betting product itself is illegal. Around 40 billion dollars were turned over in 2020 on the legal betting market alone, almost half of it in Asia, followed by Europe and North America. According to the UN report on corruption in sport, the online betting market is growing, among other things, because of its easy access to games of chance, its social recognition and prominent advertising figures.
The virtual competitions in e-sports deserve special attention. In contrast to traditional sports, e-sport is not regulated by a non-profit organization, but its characteristics are in the hands of the manufacturers of computer games, according to the UNODC. The number of viewers at these competitions has doubled since 2016 to almost 560 million. In view of these circumstances, according to the UN, competition among computer gamers is susceptible to corruption in two ways: through the deliberate manipulation of the player’s performance or through “digital cheating” with the help of the software.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 211209-99-313770 / 3
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