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Suspicious Betting Trends in Global Football 2018 Report
Suspicious Betting Trends in Global Football 2018 Report
© 2018 Starlizard Integrity Services, Perform Group and TXODDS
This work is subject to copyright protection. Any use of the content presented herein should include attribution
to the Starlizard Integrity Services, Perform Group and TXODDS Suspicious Betting Trends in Global Football
2018 Report.
All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically those of
translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocopying machines or similar
means, and storage in data banks the material is concerned, specifically those of translation, reprinting, re-
use of illustrations, broadcasting, reproduction by photocopying machines or similar means, and storage in
data banks.
The authors can give no guarantee for the information contained in this report. The use of registered names,
trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of specific statement, that such
names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
CONTENTS FOREWORD 5
INTRODUCTION & METHODOLOGY 6
HEADLINES 8
SUSPICIOUS BETTING MARKETS
Geographic Split 9
Tier Split by Games 11
Tier Split by Percentage 12
FOCUS
Friendlies 13
Youth Matches 14
A European Youth League 15
ABOUT THE AUTHORS 16
4
5
FOREWORD This report has been produced with a wide readership in
mind. It aims to provide fellow stakeholders in the sports
integrity community, including governing organisations, public
bodies, academia and the media, as well as the general
public, with a meaningful and informative snapshot of current
trends in suspicious football betting patterns.
We believe there is a distinct lack of information on this
subject in the public domain and so we, as stakeholders,
have sought to address this.
To that effect, we have collected and analysed vast amounts
of data in order to present the findings in this report, which
has seen a coming together of three private sector
companies in an innovative collaboration, harnessing the
different skills and expertise of each entity.
The aim of this report is neither to accuse nor make
assumptions. It seeks simply to show where football has
irregular betting markets associated with it and act as a guide
as to where integrity issues might exist from a betting market
perspective. No further inferences should be made without
further investigation – the findings of this report serve as
indicators rather than indictments.
We hope the results of our efforts are seen as useful and
provide the context they are intended to deliver.
Starlizard Integrity Services
Perform Group
TX Odds
July 2018
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INTRODUCTION & METHODOLOGY This report is the result of an extensive analysis of a vast
data set spanning global football betting markets and sees
monitoring alerts and market views complementing each
other in order to provide a comprehensive picture.
Starlizard Integrity Services’ unique live analysis of global
football markets has been brought together with
comprehensive betting market data assembled by TXODDS,
which has also been fed through the integrity systems of
Perform to incorporate their fast data and markets analysis.
In producing these findings, Starlizard Integrity Services and
Perform Integrity each independently undertook to identify
matches played in 2017 with suspicious betting patterns. The
two sets of matches were shared and each match was then
subjected to a secondary review – only matches where
consensus was reached that the betting patterns could not
be legitimately explained and were suspicious have been
included in this report and identified as such.
The result is an unprecedented analysis of betting markets
(Asian Handicap, 1X2 and Total Goals markets) relating to
over 54,000 football matches played throughout the world in
2017. These have been carefully scrutinised, both live and
retrospectively, in order to identify whether any suspicious or
unusual activity exists within those betting markets.
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(continued) ‘Suspicious’ betting markets by definition refer to markets
that, when likened to comparable markets, look irregular and
for which we can find no regular explanations as to why the
markets have taken this appearance.
Experience of analysing hundreds of thousands of football
matches and their related betting markets allows us to
analyse expected market prices by distilling what is
happening on and off the football pitch and converting this
into betting probabilities.
When a football match is potentially being manipulated for
betting purposes, the correlating markets fail to behave as,
or as close as, we would ordinarily expect based on this
experience. Patterns are irregular, price movements are
unnatural and, in addition to this, neither off-pitch
developments (such as team news) nor on-pitch activity can
be used to rationalise these.
The suspicious betting markets relating to the 397 football
matches referred to in this report have been identified on the
basis that they all fit into this category.
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HEADLINES
54,757 Football matches
played in 2017 analysed
500+ Domestic and international
competitions analysed
397 Football matches seen as having suspicious betting
patterns in 2017
0.73% Percentage of all games
analysed in 2017 classified as suspicious
90 Countries across
six continents analysed
1.2% Percentage of all
friendlies analysed in 2017 classified as
suspicious
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1
71
241
44
5
3
32
397
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Africa
Asia
Europe
Internationalsand Friendlies
North andCentral America
Oceania
South America
TOTAL
No. of football matches seen as having suspicious betting markets in 2017
SUSPICIOUS BETTING MARKETS
Geographic Split
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SUSPICIOUS BETTING MARKETS
Geographic Split
0.08%
1.34%
0.75%
1.03%
0.21%
0.15%
0.43%
0.00% 0.20% 0.40% 0.60% 0.80% 1.00% 1.20% 1.40% 1.60%
Africa
Asia
Europe
Internationalsand Friendlies
North andCentral America
Oceania
South America
% of football matches analysed seen as having suspicious betting markets in 2017
11
0
4
16
53
48
159
37
80
397
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Tier 5
Tier 6
Tier 7
Tier 8
Total
No. of football matches with suspicious betting markets
0
4
16
53
48
159
37
80
397
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Tier 5
Tier 6
Tier 7
Tier 8
TOTAL
SUSPICIOUS BETTING MARKETS
Tier Split by Games
No. of football matches seen as having suspicious betting markets in 2017
Tiers relate to betting market levels which sometimes, but not always, correlate to football tiers. Tier 1 represents
high maximum stakes per bet, whilst Tier 8 matches are at the lower end of this scale.
Congested fixture programmes, such as Saturday afternoons in Europe, can have a profound effect on how
competitions are tiered. Whilst World Cup matches and elite level competitions would be included in Tier 1, other
competitions can be tiered both on their prominence and the timings of the games played. For example, leagues
in Asia may have a higher than expected tier status due to less competition in the betting market space.
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SUSPICIOUS BETTING MARKETS
Tier Split by Percentage
0.00%
0.17%
0.36%
0.93%
0.61%
0.90%
0.54%
0.97%
0.73%
0.00% 0.20% 0.40% 0.60% 0.80% 1.00% 1.20%
Tier 1
Tier 2
Tier 3
Tier 4
Tier 5
Tier 6
Tier 7
Tier 8
TOTAL
% of all analysed football matches assessed as having suspicious betting markets in 2017
13
FOCUS
Friendlies
32
365
397
0 100 200 300 400 500
Friendlies
Other Matches
TOTAL
32 international and
club friendlies were
identified as having
suspicious betting
markets associated
with them in 2017.
This equates to
1.2% of all friendly
fixtures analysed.
No. of football matches seen as having suspicious betting markets in 2017
14
16%
84%
Matches with Suspicious Betting Markets
Youth Matches
Other Matches
62 youth games were
identified as having
suspicious markets
associated with them.
This is equivalent to
16% of all games
identified as having
suspicious markets,
despite youth games
representing less than
8% of the total data
analysed.
FOCUS
Youth Matches
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One domestic youth league in Europe saw 9% of all its games analysed in 2017
as having suspicious betting markets associated with them.
This was the highest percentage seen in a single competition.
FOCUS
A European Youth League
22
244
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Matches with suspiciousbetting markets
Total matches analysed
No. of football matches
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Starlizard Integrity Services is the specialist and dedicated
integrity division of Starlizard Consulting that has been working
with football governing bodies and associations since 2010.
Starlizard are the world leaders at knowing true prices and
probabilities which, together with their unique inside view of the
market, makes them best placed to identify anomalies in betting
markets across global football competitions.
Perform Group is the digital leader in global sports media,
touching every aspect of the way fans engage with sport. Perform
works with Rights Holders and other stakeholders to enhance and
protect the value of sport. Its non-commercial Integrity team
provides support to sport governing bodies, Rights Holders and
the betting industry in protecting competitions from betting fraud
and match-fixing through in-house monitoring, intelligence and
investigations capabilities.
TXODDS is a data company that specialises in the aggregation
and global distribution of real time betting odds. As betting data
experts they have worked together with Perform to deliver an
industry-leading betting market monitoring system.
All three companies are committed to preserving the integrity of
sport. We value integrity as standard and we are not driven by
profit in this regard.
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Web www.starlizard.com/integrity-services
Email [email protected]
Twitter @starlizard_is
Web www.txodds.net
Email [email protected]
Twitter @TXODDSOfficial
Web www.performgroup.com
Email [email protected]
Twitter @PerformGroup
