Canada’s high rollers on high alert for match-fixing
It’s a safe bet that Canadian sports fans aren’t familiar with Kyle McKinstry.
Almost a year ago, McKinstry received an eight-year ban from the Darts Regulation Authority for his role in fixing two matches at the Modus Icons tournament.
The punishment was the result of an investigation after the governing body for professional darts was informed by the International Betting Integrity Association of suspicious betting activity during the event in April and May 2020.
Seven bookmakers flagged suspicious wagers and “significant connections” were discovered between McKinstry and eight bettors who made almost $33,000 from his loss to David Evans.
Match-fixing has been around forever, and Canada has also been in the eye of a betting storm.
As Declan Hill wrote for the Star in 2016, the semi-professional Canadian Soccer League was once considered “a hot spot of corruption and match-fixing” with bettors from around the world profiting by wagering on CSL matches.
For the players in Canada’s new regulated sports betting industry, there is work being done to thwart the manipulation of sports events.
“Legal betting leads to more eyes watching and shining a brighter light,” said Paul Burns, president and CEO of the Canadian Gaming Association. “In the past, nobody was overseeing sports betting because the only regulation was around legal gaming.”
The Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario, responsible for licensing and regulating what’s expected to be the only open sports betting and internet gaming market in the country, has met with the national and international associations and others to incorporate stringent standards.
According to Doug Hood, the AGCO’s project manager for sports betting, any sportsbook applying for a licence will “have an obligation to monitor the betting patterns they’re seeing.”
“We’ve been speaking to as many different stakeholders as we can to get it right,” Hood said this week.
“We’ve been able to learn from jurisdictions around the world and take the best pieces from each to create something that makes a lot of sense and works practically.”
Hood said those conversations have involved the International Betting Integrity Association, a not-for-profit organization that operates across six continents and is funded by more than 50 sportsbook operators through membership fees.
“We’re seeing how we can work more broadly with the AGCO now that Ontario is opening up,” said the association’s CEO, Khalid Ali. “We’ve been working with them closely and found them to be very receptive to hearing the pros and cons of integrity and regulatory practices.
“They’ve put together a very good model.”
The association has collaborated with the International Olympic Committee — including the monitoring of suspicious betting during the Tokyo Games — FIFA, UEFA, the International Tennis Integrity Agency, gaming commissions across Europe and other organizations which have an interest in keeping tabs on wagering patterns. Sportsbook operators can flag suspicious betting with the international association, which then passes the information along to a sports organization and/or integrity body for possible investigation.
“Our members want to make sure the games are safe so the customers can bet on them,” Ali said during a Zoom call from Brussels. “They won’t bet on a sport that’s being fixed.”
In its latest quarterly report, the international integrity body identified 65 suspicious alerts in nine sports, including soccer, tennis, basketball, esports and table tennis (which emerged as an attractive sport for bettors early in COVID-19 pandemic and has seen a subsequent rise in suspicious cases). Three alerts in North America have led to investigations: two tennis matches in Mexico and the U.S., and a cricket match in St. Kitts and Nevis.
While there’s heightened interest in live, in-game betting with increased access to data by sports leagues and sportsbooks, Ali said the data collected by his association shows the majority of alerts about potential matchfixing come before the start of an event.
“A lot of people think in-play wagering is going to cause an increase in integrity threats,” Ali said.
“If you want to move those (in-game) markets, it’s very difficult. You can get more money on pre-match (wagers).”
Until now, Ali’s group hasn’t operated in North America, which has a fast-growing betting industry with the legalization of single-event wagering in both Canada and the U.S. The NHL, NBA, NFL and other pro leagues have been monitoring deals with companies such as Sportradar and Genius Sports. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told Sportsnet this past summer that the league has “a number of third-party resources that we regularly employ to monitor betting activities on our games.”
Matthew Holt, CEO of U.S. Integrity which counts the NBA and several sportsbooks and regulators among its clients, said the American betting industry — like the AGCO — has made independent monitoring a priority.
“The oddsmaker shouldn’t be your only integrity provider, just like an arresting officer in a case shouldn’t be the judge,” Holt said.