Overview
Sport is one of the biggest civic movements in most countries all over the world.
In that sense the sport universe represents and reflects all aspects of society, and therefore sport faces similar challenges to those in other fields of human activity, in which its integrity is threatened.
Such issues must be addressed with a mix of policies and actions encompassing governance, prevention, cooperation and enforcement.
It is in result of its popularity and access to organised sport and competitions globally, that betting on sport outcomes is now a major component of overall global gambling. Betting is attracted to sport competitions due to both the uncertainty of results and the live global media coverage of contests.
International gambling on sport, otherwise known as gaming, is a complex and sophisticated international business model with a significant and growing cumulative global turnover. As with some other international business economies, there are legal and well regulated, legal but under-regulated and illegal sport betting operators within the global totality.
In response to these new facts and circumstances stakeholders are called to consider innovative solutions, review concepts and stimulate extensive concertation (and action) by the directly interested parties and key-stakeholders.
The majority of international sport betting today operates like any international trade dealing essentially with financial exchanges, through the use of computed algorithmically driven instantaneous protection of the commission percentage, with betting money constantly shifted and hedged, most often while a sport contest is actually in play.
As sport betting is constantly innovating new products and delivering platforms to international bettors, the capacity of national regulators and national laws to keep pace and to control taxation revenues, where applicable, is seriously challenged. Existing taxation regimes do not appear to capture a major percentage of the international sport betting trade.
It is with this background that action is needed by all the relevant actors – sport organisations, betting operators, regulators and enforcement authorities: to prioritize the safeguard of the integrity of competitions and of the betting market, at all levels and across structures and operations, providing sufficient resources for the purpose.
The Recommendations in this part contain fundamental elements to translate the prioritization given into practice and are applicable to all stakeholders.
Recommendations
Recommendation 1
Strengthen legal frameworks with the inclusion of specific criminal offenses related to match-fixing. (IO2)
Recommendation 2
Adopt dissuasive sanctions not only to natural persons but also to legal persons liable. (IO2)
Recommendation 3
Assure a thorough understanding and a clear and vocal commitment of the leadership of institutions in prioritizing integrity protection policies, plans and measures, in particular against match-fixing. (IO2)
Recommendation 4
Allocate an adequate level of human and financial resources to integrity policies and programs (protected reporting systems, capacity building programs, integrity unit(s), exchange of information and monitoring technologies, etc.). (IO2)
Any effective approach to tackling competition manipulation requires that law enforcement agencies, criminal justice authorities, corruption prevention authorities and relevant officials in sports organizations acquire appropriate knowledge, receive appropriate technical assistance and have access to cooperation mechanisms. UNODC2021