International betting operators call for global sports data standards

Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, said: “Upholding the reliability and credibility of sporting event data is of paramount importance for my members and the challenges posed by the pandemic have further highlighted the necessity for robust data chains."

2020-05-22

Belgium

Reading time 1:27 min

The International Betting Integrity Association is asking all stakeholders, notably data providers, to proactively engage with the association and its members to develop and implement agreed best practice standards around the sale, collation and distribution of sports data for betting.

The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has called on all parties engaged in the supply chain of sports event data for betting to adhere to global best practice standards.

IBIA said in a release Thursday that it believes this is the most effective means of achieving an approach that best serves to protect the integrity of sport, its data, betting markets generated by that data and consumers enjoying those products.

Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA, said: “Upholding the reliability and credibility of sporting event data is of paramount importance for my members and the challenges posed by the pandemic have further highlighted the necessity for robust data chains. There is a clear benefit for everyone involved in the data supply chain in ensuring that such data is a product of high levels of accuracy and transparency.”

He further commented: “IBIA and its members have been considering this issue internally for some time and would like to go a step further and have a proper industry-wide debate. To that end, IBIA is asking all stakeholders, notably data providers, to proactively engage with the association and its members to develop and implement agreed best practice standards around the sale, collation and distribution of sports data for betting.”

The International Betting Integrity Association, established in 2005 and formerly known as ESSA, is a leading global voice on integrity for the licensed betting industry. It is run by operators for operators, protecting its members from corruption through collective action. Its monitoring and alert platform is a highly effective anti-corruption tool that detects and reports suspicious activity on its members’ betting markets. The association has longstanding information-sharing partnerships with leading sports and gambling regulators to utilise its data and prosecute corruption. It represents the sector at high-level policy discussion forums such as the IOC, UN, Council of Europe and European Commission.

The association publishes quarterly reports covering the integrity alerts reported through its monitoring and alert platform, which can be viewed here.