Match fixing is amongst the biggest issues for sports fans, organizations and bookmakers alike, as nothing about sports can perhaps work without knowing that the competition has integrity.

That’s why the European Sports Security Association (ESSA) has begun monitoring and reporting on suspicious betting patterns, providing insight into what tournaments are attracting the many unusual wagers.

Within the first such quarterly report, ESSA found that it had been tennis that triggered both the most alerts and the many suspicious activity during the first three months of 2015.

A total of 27 alerts were raised over unusual betting patterns in tennis during those months, with 17 of them being deemed suspicious.

Tennis, Soccer Generate Bulk of Alerts

As a whole, there were 49 alerts raised during the quarter after unusual sizes or numbers of wagers were made on individual activities. After tennis, soccer saw the absolute most activity that is suspicious with 13 alerts raised and three finally considered to be suspicious.

‘Fundamentally, betting-related match-fixing is an attempt to defraud gambling operators and their customers by corrupting sporting events,’ said ESSA president Mike O’Kane. ‘It can be an problem that creates economic and social damage and that requires worldwide cross-sector cooperation.’

When betting activity triggers an alert, ESSA’s people (bookmakers that operate both online as well as in retail outlets throughout Europe) dig to the data around an occasion to be sure that there isn’t a good reason for the wagering: for instance, odds that are way too popular with bettors, or some form of human error. Just if your reason can not be established is betting activity termed suspicious.

Table tennis had two alerts deemed dubious, while ice snooker and hockey each had one. Greyhound racing, lawn bowling and boxing created alerts, but none of these were fundamentally found to be suspicious.

As Individual Sport, Tennis is Simple Target for Match-Fixing

But with more than half of all alerts ( therefore the majority of these found to be suspicious as well) coming from tennis, it is fair to wonder why the sport might attract more attention from match-fixers than the others.

The obvious reason is that tennis is an individual sport, meaning that only 1 individual needs to be in on the scheme to be able for it to work.

Tennis comes with numerous events place that is taking the world nearly each week of the season, meaning you can find constantly lower-level activities where there is little prize money that could be potential targets for match fixers.

Such suspicions were raised earlier this in a Challenger Tour event in Dallas year. Here, many suspected that 174^th-ranked Denys Molchanov might have purposely dropped a match to 303^rd-ranked Agustin Velotti.

The pattern there was one that has stimulated suspicions in lots of tennis matches. Molchanov arrived in as the favorite and took a very early lead, winning initial set in the best-of-three match.

You might expect that this will make Molchanov a level bigger favorite for in-play bettors, but the other occurred, as cash flooded in on Velotti. Yes enough, Velotti came ultimately back to win the final two sets.

Based on Ian Dorward, a sports modeler who has set lines for minor tennis tours for bookmakers, match fixing that is most in tennis likely involves specific games or sets rather than determining who wins the entire contest.

For instance, two players might agree to split the first couple of sets in a manner that is predetermined then play the final set for real to decide who advances in a tournament.

‘My guess would be that multiple matches are being fixed each week,’ Dorward told Slate. ‘In terms of the general matches which are being played, we’d imagine it ended up being still a relatively tiny percentage.’

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