Estonian Center for Integrity in Sports partners with Sportradar Integrity Services

As part of the agreement, Sportradar Integrity Services will use its Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS) to initially provide bet monitoring and reporting for football, basketball, handball, and volleyball competitions played in Estonia, encompassing more than 1,000 fixtures per year. Additional ice hockey, badminton, beach soccer, futsal, and cricket events will subsequently be covered by the agreement from the summer of 2022.

The UFDS, an advanced and proven bet monitoring system, has been independently assessed and verified by recognized experts in the field of sports betting and integrity. A global team of qualified integrity experts analyse irregular betting patterns, with any suspicious matches subsequently reported to partners, providing essential visibility into the worldwide match-fixing landscape. Last year, more than 500 suspicious matches were detected by Sportradar across global sport, and UFDS has reported more than 5,500 suspicious matches during the past 15 years.

In February 2021, Sportradar announced it was going to offer the UFDS free of charge to sports federations and leagues in a landmark commitment to safeguard the integrity of global sport. Irrespective of finances, Sportradar regard bet monitoring as an essential that should be available to help protect all levels of competition. Between now and October 2021, Sportradar will continue to upscale their technology and operation to effectively deliver this ambitious project.

In Estonia, Sportradar Integrity Services already have a long standing partnership with the Estonian Football Association dating back more than 10 years, and have supported with investigations including the 2014 case, which saw over 20 players sanctioned for match-fixing offences.

Henn Vallimäe, Executive Director at ESTCIS has commented that “we are fully committed to putting in place the measures necessary to ensure that the integrity of sport throughout Estonia is maintained, and this agreement with Sportradar Integrity Services is integral to doing so. Global bet monitoring across a broad range of sporting competitions will give us a valuable insight into the betting activity surrounding our domestic competitions, with Sportradar’s integrity specialists able to alert us to any abnormalities.”

Sportradar Integrity Services Managing Director Andreas Krannich added: “Having worked alongside the Estonian FA for the last decade, we are delighted to sign this agreement with another key Estonian partner in the ESTCIS. At Sportradar we have witnessed integrity threats across a range of different sports in recent years, and these challenges have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and its associated issues on a global scale. The services provided by the UFDS will help aid the ESTCIS in their efforts to understand the threat of match-fixing in the country and to prevent manipulation of their sporting competitions now and in the future, and we look forward to supporting their integrity programme.”