ESSA reveals suspicious sports betting activity in Q1

ESSA has revealed that it reported 11 instances of suspicious betting patterns to relevant authorities during the first three months of the year, with tennis again heading the list of sports involved.

A total of nine cases related to tennis were flagged up in the quarter, with one each in basketball and football.

Asia led the way in terms of the geographical location of the suspicious betting activity with five of the 11 cases, with Europe having three, Africa two and South America one incident.

Publication of the ESSA report coincides with the annual EU sports integrity day, which, endorsed through social media as #EUSportIntegrityDay, is designed to help combat match-fixing across professional sport.

The programme is also supported by the European Commission, which recently confirmed that it would continue to fund the initiative until at least the end of 2017.

Related article: ESSA launches new initiative to tackle match-fixing in sport