Lynnae Williams Journalist
Lynnae is a journalist covering the intersection of technology, culture, and gambling. She has more than five years of experience as a writer and editor, with bylines at SlashGear and MakeUseOf. On the iGaming side,...
Read Full BioGlobal match-fixing activity continued to trend downward in 2025, according to Sportradar’s Integrity in Action 2025: Global Analysis & Trends report. The trend held even as the company’s AI-powered detection tools flagged a higher share of suspicious matches.
In a February 10 press release, Sportradar said it had monitored more than 1,000,000 sporting events across 70 sports in 2025 and identified 1,116 suspicious matches, a 1% decline from 2024. Based on the study’s findings, no suspicious activity was detected in over 99.5% of sporting events that were monitored.
The sports technology firm pointed to these results as proof that efforts to increase integrity measures globally are working.
“The relative stabilisation of suspicious match numbers in 2025 is encouraging, yet it reinforces the importance of continued vigilance. Match-fixing remains an evolving threat, and sustained investment in technology, intelligence, education, and collaboration is essential to staying ahead of those seeking to corrupt sport,” Sportradar executive vice president of Integrity Services Andreas Krannich said in response to the findings.
Key Findings From Sportradar’s Integrity Report
In the full report, Sportradar describes the global decline in match-fixing as progress, but there’s also evidence that as bad actors adapt, the methods they use to manipulate games are changing. By doing so, they can evade traditional detection.
While the 2025 report shows that the overall volume of match-fixing is beginning to stabilize, the threat is becoming more dispersed. Instead of being concentrated mostly in soccer, today, match-fixing is found across sports.
Soccer still holds the crown as the sport most affected by suspicious matches, with 618 in total, which is down from 730 in 2024. In contrast, other sports have seen significant upticks, with basketball leading the pack with 233 recorded cases, reversing a two-year trend.
Behind basketball, 78 suspicious matches were recorded in tennis, 65 in table tennis, and 59 in cricket. In January, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario fined FanDuel for failing to prevent a table tennis match-fixing scheme.
Cricket stands out among the sports in the study, as it saw suspicious matches more than triple any of the previous year’s levels, dating back to 2021. The study attributes this increase to “both the growth of short-format competitions and the enhanced detection power of UFDS AI.” UFDS is Sportradar’s Universal Fraud Detection System, which uses AI to flag unusual betting patterns.
Sportradar says UFDS is one of the major drivers behind its ability to detect suspicious matches. The system supports real-time analysis of extensive betting datasets to uncover irregular patterns that might otherwise go undetected with traditional methods.
As a result, the number of suspicious matches flagged by AI analysis increased significantly year-on-year by 56%, rising from 436 to 682.
Beyond technology, Sportradar intensified its focus on prevention and enforcement:
- Education: Integrity Education initiatives reached more than 34,000 participants in 2025, a 25% increase from the previous year.
- Sanctions: The company supported 125 sporting sanctions across seven sports and all six major continents, bringing its all-time total to more than 1,000.
- Regional Progress: Europe saw a tangible decline with 66 fewer cases than in 2024, while South America also recorded a notable reduction of 64 suspicious matches.
North & Central America Saw More Suspicious Matches
While the overall global total fell, Sportradar’s regional overview shows that North & Central America recorded 84 suspicious matches in 2025, almost double the previous year’s total. The report lists the region among those with moderate year-over-year increases.
Given the number of sports betting scandals that made headlines over the past year, those numbers aren’t particularly surprising. The regional rise in suspicious matches comes at a time when the U.S. betting industry is facing repeated integrity stress tests, especially around basketball at the professional and collegiate levels.
Before the NCAA point-shaving and bribery scandal made headlines in early January, multiple cases involving betting-related manipulation and violations by Division I men’s basketball players had been reported, including some cases that resulted in a permanent loss of eligibility.
The NCAA has publicly called on regulators to eliminate prop bets, arguing they increase harassment of student-athletes and the risk of insider information being used to manipulate games and betting markets.
Just this week, on February 10, the Big Ten Student-Athlete Issues Commission wrote to NCAA President Charlie Baker expressing their full support for a nationwide ban on college athlete prop bets to protect their peers from gambling-related harassment and coercion.
Beyond college basketball, other notable cases made headlines in 2025:
- MLB Pitch-Rigging Conspiracy: In November 2025, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were indicted for a scheme to rig bets on individual pitches. Clase allegedly manipulated pitch speed and type in at least 48 games over a two-year period, allowing co-conspirators to win at least $400,000 on fraudulent prop bets.
- Inside Information & Rigged Prop Bets: Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and former player Damon Jones were indicted in October 2025 for allegedly selling non-public information to a betting ring. In the most high-profile instance, Rozier allegedly informed associates he would fake an injury during a March 2023 game, then removed himself after just nine minutes of play to ensure his associates won over $200,000 in “under” prop bets.
- Mafia-Linked Poker Ring: Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups was charged for his role in a rigged high-stakes poker network operated by New York’s crime families. Billups allegedly acted as a “face card” to lure wealthy victims into games that were systematically rigged using X-ray tables, card-reading contact lenses, and modified shuffling machines to guarantee profits for organized crime.
While U.S. sports saw a series of high-profile betting scandals over the past year, and the number of suspicious matches rose modestly in the region, according to Sportradar, the global trendline points to continued containment.
However, that may be no solace for North American stakeholders who are unlikely to feel “out of the woods,” especially as betting markets grow and integrity issues keep surfacing in high-profile U.S. sports.
