The leading company for preventing and detecting match-fixing and training various stakeholders to avoid problems in the future is Sportradar. Handbollskanalen has spoken with Sportradar’s managing director of integrity services, Andreas Krannich, who expresses concern about the development.
“We’re worried. Since the pandemic, the cancer that is match-fixing has exploded and for a year and a half, a total of over 1,200 matches have been manipulated in all sports,” he tells Handbollskanalen.
Sportradar is the leading company in the world in countering match-fixing. The company was founded in 2005 and although there are several branches within the company, the one that Andreas Krannich is responsible for is directly related to match-fixing.
“We support sports’ governing bodies, police and law enforcement as well as government agencies. Our job is to detect betting-related manipulation, but hopefully also to prevent it. We also examine the people in the background. In Sweden, for example, we cooperate with football, handball, basketball, Swedish police and the gaming inspectorate,” says Krannich.
In total, Sportradar monitors over 60 different sports and over 100 different sports federations, all to prevent and detect illegal activity.
“The tricky thing about betting-related manipulation is that people often do not understand what it is. But it is really nothing different than insider trading on the stock exchange. Someone knows what will happen in a match and he or she bets money on it.”
“We try to be a bridge in between”
But Sportradar monitors and helps not only unions, police and authorities but also betting companies. Over 600 different companies use Sportradar.
“Basically, we are a computer company and we know how to collect data. We have various programs that keep track of goals, red cards, odds and more.”
Andreas Krannich says that bookmakers do not normally talk to the police and authorities, nor do sports associations and federations. This is where Sportradar comes into the picture:
“We try to be a bridge in between.”
According to Krannich, there is a natural friction between the sports world and the betting world.
“Sports want some of the betting companies’ money. If you work for a betting company, your job is ultimately about having commercial success. If a good bettor (one that the betting company loses money on) bets much and often, then one of the company’s best traders will react to the fact that the strong bettor is a good customer but that ten per cent of their bets are shady.”
“Then people at the betting company will want to do something about it. An alternative is of course to talk to the police because the bettor is either a criminal or they have information related to criminal activities. But at the same time, they are still a good customer and if the betting company shuts them down, the company will not only lose money but the bettor will spend that money with a competitor. In this situation, perhaps the betting company will instead speak to the bettor and agree that they can continue to bet with them but with different odds.”
Krannich says that this type of agreement is common and similar situations arise at a variety of betting companies, regardless of whether they are legal or not.
“September and October are always bad months in terms of results for betting companies. The football Champions League starts then and the bigger clubs face outsiders, which leads to betting companies always losing money. Should they then tell the police that the bettor could potentially be a criminal or use the situation to control and minimise their losses?”
Universal Fraud Detection System
But this job in all its glory is reflected in the great work Sportradar does to discover when match-fixing attempts are made.
“We not only see odds movements but we see the exact amounts that are invested and where they are invested. What amount is placed and when. To give an example, we can see something about a match and then contact the Swedish Handball Association and tell them what happened and through which betting company the money was invested. Then SHF and the betting company can talk and contact the police to start an investigation.”
At Sportradar, they work with the Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS), a service they offer for free to all sports around the world. Krannich describes it as an alarm system that alerts when something is going on.
“It’s like an alarm on your house. It protects your doors, your windows and your basement so that no one breaks in. But just like you have seen on film, there are no perfect alarm systems and that is where we come into the picture. If we discover a suspicious match, we are always 110 per cent sure that it has been manipulated. In other words, if you read somewhere that Sportradar has discovered a manipulated match, you can be 110 per cent sure that it has been fixed. It’s just the tip of the iceberg.”
“The system is structured in such a way that it does not go wrong. It cannot go wrong, otherwise, our credibility would go down the drain.”
Since 2009, Sportradar through UFDS has discovered over 6,600 matches in various sports that have been fixed. The big problem is that the number of cases increases with each passing year.
“It happens that we are criticized because we have not discovered this or that match and it is a fair criticism, we are not perfect either. But maybe we should rather talk about the 6,600 matches where we actually discovered that something was wrong.
How worried are you about the development?
“We’re worried. Since the pandemic, the cancer that is match-fixing has exploded and for a year and a half, over 1,200 matches in twelve different sports have been manipulated. The pandemic has poured gasoline on the fire. Clubs have suffered major financial losses, which means that salaries are delayed or that the players and coaches only get 60 per cent of what they should receive according to their contracts.
“That leads to players and coaches who have never considered fixing a match do just that.”
The most worrying thing is that it is not only specific players who fix matches. Krannich says that there are criminal groups that have entire clubs under their control, which do more or less as the criminals want them to.
“They can be completely legal for 20 games in a row just to then fix the 21st match. And let’s say that you and I play in a team where we have not been paid in three or four months, which is unfortunately common right now. Three minutes before the start of the match, the owner comes to us and says ‘I’m sorry you did not receive your salaries, but if you are behind with so and so much after such a long time and still win the match, I will pay two-thirds of your salaries’.”
“If we then decide to do it, we are usually in the hands of the match-fixers for the rest of our lives.
How many matches have you seen fixed in handball?
“Not so many. The vast majority are in football. But that does not mean that it does not happen in handball. But there are very few cases compared to football.”
Are you worried that those who fix football matches can switch to fixing handball matches, for example, as you gain more control over football?
“Not particularly worried that they change, we are worried that they fix both football matches and handball matches. Sports betting is growing and we can always discuss whether it is good or bad. But banning things never works, it only makes it easier for criminals. We have seen this in the US war on drugs and we see it on a daily basis in Sweden and Germany, among other places,” concludes Andreas Krannich.
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