WOMEN’S SPORT AND SPORTS BETTING
and practical perspective, with the latter based on real life case studies. The research found that the number of publicly available and confirmed match-fixing incidents in women’s sports is significantly lower than in men’s sports. Whilst this creates a perception that women’s sports may be less susceptible to this criminal activity, the study also cautions that – in part because of how recent the rise in the popularity of women’s sport is – there is not currently enough data available to be definitive about this finding. There is therefore no room for complacency. One of the key recommendations made in the study was therefore to increase the availability of data for research designed to deepen our understanding of the match-fixing dynamics in women’s sports. This will help sports governing bodies and sports betting companies to develop approaches to sports integrity which are tailored to the particular circumstances of women’s sports. By happy coincidence, the rising interest in betting on women’s sport will also lead organically to the generation of more data. We have already seen how US leagues and sports benefitted from selling their official data to sports betting operators when
the betting market opened. By monetizing this data they have created additional revenues. The same can and should happen in women’s sports. There is further hope from other parts of the ecosystem. Stats Perform, for instance, registered a 62 percent growth in data coverage of women’s sporting events (football, basketball, cricket) between 2019- 2020. As with most data, the value of the whole is greater than the individual parts, so by recording data and building more comprehensive databases, the value of the data will increase with the growth in women’s sports and provide an additional incentive for data providers to invest in women’s sport. We are at the beginning of a revolution, and the whole women’s sports ecosystem could benefit from it. However, with increased growth, comes an increased responsibility to ensure we get ahead of the game when it comes to sports integrity and the fight against match-fixing in women’s sport. By understanding what this new and rapidly evolving landscape looks like we put ourselves in the best possible position to keep sport, athletes customers and sports betting operators, and safe for all.
SILVIA PALEARI Director of Public Affairs, International Betting Integrity Association For information contact sp@ibia.bet
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IMGL MAGAZINE | OCTOBER 2023
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