The Dutch Gaming Authority’s Sports Betting Intelligence Unit, the Kansspelautoriteit (KSA), reported that potential match-fixing reports have doubled in 2024, referring to the new unit within the KSA tasked with handling match-fixing cases.
Despite the KSA’s lack of jurisdiction to detect match-fixing cases, the authority still has an obligation to monitor operators who take such reports seriously, which is why it established the Sports Betting Intelligence Unit (SBIU).
The sole purpose of the SBIU is to monitor and report any instances of suspicious sports betting activity, and by December 2024, the unit has received 13 reports from eight operators in relation to match-fixing.
Out of these 13 reports, 10 were submitted in the first three months of the year. Moreover, out of the total number, 10 were related to tennis matches, 2 from football, and 1 from baskebtall.
Moreover, one of these reports was due to a drastic spike in the odds, which in turn resulted in the suspicious team to be blacklisted by the KSA.
Two of the reports were regarding players betting on a suspicious match, and this also didn’t go unnoticed by the KSA, with the license holders currently in the process of investigating the suspicious activity.
The other ten reports included specific wagering patterns, and this includes players betting large sums of money on specific bets at key moments of matches. In such instances, the operators are instructed to limit the betting options and the accounts of the suspicious bettors.
According to the KSA, the increased number of reports doesn’t necessarily mean increased criminal activity, as it could simply be due to the Sports Betting Intelligence Unit’s increased awareness regarding this matter.
Additionally, the KSA issued the following statement:
There have been no reports this year about athletes who have bet on their own competition or watched. Whether this is because this did not happen within the legal gambling world, because gambling operators did not notice or because this simply was not reported, this cannot be said.
