The International Betting Integrity Association – IBIA – together with the Colombian Federation of Entrepreneurs of Games of Luck and Chance – FECOLJUEGOS recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the aim of joining forces to establish projects and initiatives to fight against sports betting related fraud in Colombia and to protect the integrity of sports and sports betting companies.

IBIA is the world’s leading voice on integrity for the licensed sports betting industry with its account-based integrity monitoring system covering over US$137bn in betting transactions per annum globally. Data from IBIA and its members have played a significant role in supporting the investigations, prosecutions, and sanctioning of those parties involved in match-fixing, mitigating and preventing the possibilities of this type of irregular practice.

In 2021 those suspicious betting activities reported by IBIA to relevant authorities helped in issuing sporting or criminal sanctions against 11 teams or players. IBIA reported 121 alerts to relevant authorities in Latin America between 2017 and 2021, with a total of 9 alerts regarding suspicious matches taking place in Colombia- 8 concerning tennis and 1 football.

According to the latest figures from leading market data intelligence company H2 Gambling Capital, the total betting gross win in 2021 in Latin America[1] was worth US$1.9bn in 2021 with projections showing that it should rise to US$3.5bn in 2026. In Colombia the betting gross win is estimated at US$808m in 2021 and should increase to US$1.1 bn in 2026.

Khalid Ali, CEO of IBIA stated: “We are happy to collaborate with Fecoljuegos on common projects in the fight against match-fixing. The establishment of the Colombian National Committee for the prevention of manipulation of sports competitions is the first of its kind in the Latin American region. Fecoljuegos played an important role in its launch and we fully support the call for integrity provisions to be included in the gambling legislation’.

For his part, Evert Montero Cárdenas, president of Fecoljuegos, considers that this is an important step for the sector in Colombia that reaffirms the industry’s commitment in this matter: “With great expectation we receive this memorandum which establishes an agreement of wills, we believe that this is an important step to shield the activity from irregular practices that have affected it for years. Partnering with IBIA is surely something that guarantees higher standards of integrity, which represents an advantage for the legal industry in the country”.

[1] Excluding Mexico as in the H2 Gambling Capital statistics Mexico is included in the North America section.