After the number of suspicious soccer matches in Europe had fallen in the meantime, it rose again last year, according to the annual report by Sportradar, a company that analyzes the global betting market.
397 soccer matches in Europe are suspected of match-fixing in 2023. A sharp increase after the number of matches in 2022 fell from 370 (2021) to 343. In Asia (128/2021; 155/2022; 168/2023), South America (127/2021; 201/2022; 205/2023) and other regions (70/2021; 78/2022; 110/2023), Sportradar recorded an increase in suspicious matches. Individually, Brazil remains at the top with 109 potentially influenced matches, even though there was a significant decrease of 44 matches in the country of the “jogo bonito” compared to 2022. The country of the five-time world champions is followed by the Czech Republic (67), the Philippines (65), Russia (55), Greece (46), Vietnam and Kazakhstan (43 each), Peru (38), Serbia and Argentina (36 each).
“Football and basketball continue to be the two sports most affected by match-fixing,” says Andreas Krannich, Director of Integrity at Sportradar, in the foreword. “This is also in line with our expectations at the beginning of the year, which are based on historical data and the trends that have developed in recent years.” In fact, soccer is very clearly at the top of the report with 880 games, ahead of basketball (205), table tennis (70), tennis (61) and e-sports (46). This may also have something to do with the fact that most betting data is recorded in soccer, even down to the lower leagues. Across all sports, Sportradar’s figures show that only one in 467 matches is suspicious – in soccer the odds are 1:160, in basketball 1:244.
According to the report, live betting remains the biggest problem. The overwhelming majority of suspicious soccer matches were still linked to live betting, and this was the case in 95% of the potentially fixed matches. “In 70 percent of these matches, suspicious bets occurred in the first half,” the report continues. This also matches a pattern in a recent case in Germany, for example. The match in the Regionalliga Südwest between FSV Frankfurt and TSV Steinbach-Haiger is known to be under suspicion. Unusually high bets on the visitors taking a half-time lead were conspicuous, and they were 2:0 ahead at the break. To date, nothing is known about more detailed investigation results
