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Read Full BioA report by the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) released earlier this week detailed 63 suspicious betting alerts globally in the first quarter of 2025.
The IBIA’s monitoring network spans over 140 sports betting brands, consistently monitoring over $300 billion in annual gambling turnover. IBIA represents over 80 operators worldwide, covering 50% of all regulated commercial online betting activity.
While Q1’s figures indicated an 11% increase on the 57 alerts they recorded in the same period last year, IBIA’s latest figures also reflect a 3% drop from 65, from Q4 of 2024.
Football was the most prevalent of these flagged occurrences, accounting for nearly half of the Q1 total, registering 31 alerts overall. Tennis, table tennis, and basketball all came in joint second, with the IBIA flagging nine incidents for each.
“Football and tennis remain the most reported sports, albeit their combined Q1 2025 number was down 14% on Q4 2024,” said IBIA CEO Khalid Ali. However, this notable dip was primarily due to the drop in tennis betting alerts, which have consistently declined over the last few years.
Despite table tennis experiencing a suspicious spike in activity towards the end of 2024, Q1 saw the wagering alerts drop to their recent lower tally. Nine incidents culminated in a 53% drop at the start of 2025 compared to twenty-one in Q4 2024.
IBIA’s latest report indicated that the alerts were distributed across 23 countries and five continents, emphasizing the global scale of the integrity risks. North America again topped the list with 17 alerts, followed by Europe (15) and South America (11).
IBIA Report Shows Geographically Diverse Suspicious Betting Alerts
In breaking down its report, the International Betting Integrity Association pinpointed Mexico and Brazil as two nations that featured heavily for its football-related alerts, registering nine incidents.
Behind football, six alerts were raised in the United States regarding problematic basketball betting, while the Czech Republic accounted for seven table tennis-related occurrences.
While the number of football betting incidents dominated the headlines in the report, esports and horse racing also raised alarms of suspicious betting activity. Nevertheless, while esports registered four alerts, the IBIA could not pinpoint the countries involved due to the restricted transparency of the individual events.
In response to ongoing threats, the monitoring association continues to take proactive steps to counter the global problem. “IBIA has taken increased precautions regarding this sport and agreed a number of new integrity partnerships and protocols in Q1 with the aim of detecting and sanctioning corrupt betting activity,” said Ali.
However, IBIA’s efforts to detect abnormal betting patterns worldwide received a further technological boost following an innovative system upgrade launched in late 2024. This upgrade has expanded IBIA’s scope to detect advanced abnormal betting patterns and potential match-fixing.
In addition to this, the International Betting Integrity Association has also sought to expand and strengthen its partner collaborations. The most high-profile of these was its new partnership with EstralaBet, drastically improving the organization’s oversight in Brazil. Following the association’s tally of 219 alerts in 2024, the IBIA is pushing for more transparency and enforcement across the board. Of utmost importance is the persistent threat of match-fixing, which IBIA hopes its improved coverage could help sports betting platforms identify earlier.
