The Tennis Integrity Unit Reports a Surge in Suspicious Betting Alerts
Published April 23, 2018 by Florin P
The number of tennis suspicious betting alerts increases in Q1 2018 to 38, as reported by the Tennis Integrity Unit.
The popularity of tennis is on the rise among punters, who place ever more bets on this sport. Match fixing is a threat that the Tennis Integrity Unit takes seriously and tries to prevent by monitoring suspicious betting patterns. The organization works closely with various gambling regulators and bookmakers, who provide him with alerts. Through the Memorandum of Understandings the TIU is kept up-to-date with information regarding suspicious matches.
In the first quarter of 2018, the organization received a total of 38 match alerts. This represents a slight increase of eight alerts, compared to the first quarter of 2017. The difference is small and is still below the record 48 number of alerts in 2016, but TIU doesn’t want this to grow into a trend. The year-on-year rise doesn’t necessarily indicate an increase in the number of fixed matches. Interest for tennis betting is rising at an accelerated pace, so it is not exactly a surprise that there are also more alerts.
Most Alerts are Related to ITF Events
The Tennis Integrity Unit highlighted the fact that 23 alerts were in regard to Men’s Futures matches, hosted by the International Tennis Federation. These represent more than half of the total number of suspicious activities and are followed at a distance by the ITF Women’s events with five alerts. The most watched tennis games are played in the Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women’s Tennis Association Tour. TIU received just one alert for matches hosted by the ATP and WPA.
ATP Men’s Challenger matches were also flagged six times, while Hopman, Davis and Fed Cup events produced to others. The organization takes these numbers seriously, but in the great scheme of things, these alerts represent only 0.155% of the matches played in Q1. ESSA, the betting integrity organization emphasizes the fact that most of the suspicious betting activities were related to tennis matches.
