The lotteries have a long history of supporting the Olympic movement, through funding athletes, sport federations, National Olympic Committees (NOC) and even Olympic Games Organizing Committees.
In recent years, sports betting has evolved to offer more betting products across more sports. The evolution of regulations, technology advances, and the global health crisis, have led to a boom in online sports betting. There have also been increased incidences of sports competition manipulation in many sports.
As part of the global movement to combat this problem, the United Lotteries for Integrity in Sport (ULIS) held an Integrity Seminar on the role of lotteries in supporting the sport movement on the prevention of competition manipulation. The event was organized with the support of the IOC at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne on 27-28 June.
In his opening remarks, ULIS President, Gilles Maillet, underscored the need to leverage the strong cooperation between all stakeholders involved in protecting sport integrity worldwide. This message was echoed by other speakers from the different organizations.
Around 70 participants from across the global lotteries, sports and sports betting ecosystem took part in the event. Speakers from the IOC, ITIA, FIFA, UEFA, Council of Europe and INTERPOL presented their work and discussed how cooperation can be further enhanced for detecting, monitoring, investigating and ultimately sanctioning suspected sport competition manipulation. Experts from the French, Swedish and Danish lotteries explained how their industry contributes to this global effort.
Key takeaways from speakers and panelists
Enhance communication
- An association is only as powerful as its members. It is paramount to communicate as much as possible with ULIS, report suspicions so that ULIS can share this intelligence with members.
- Increase communication and intel sharing between different ULIS members, such as sports federations, law enforcement, NOCs and lotteries.
- The type of intel shared should include trends and other potentially relevant observations.
Benefits of ULIS collaboration
- ULIS provides a source of integrity insight into global lotteries.
- ULIS offers in-depth analysis of global betting markets.
- ULIS works closely with National Platforms enabling multi-stakeholder investigations.
- ULIS reports have assisted law enforcement agents to prove match fixing has occurred.
Increase education and awareness-raising activities
- It is vital to educate athletes, especially the young, about gambling issues and match fixing (ie not to bet on their own events and what to do if approached to fix a match).
- It is crucial to continue awareness raising activities (events, trainings) across the global lotteries and sports betting ecosystem.
- Lotteries can play a crucial role in encouraging countries to ratify The Macolin Convention –
- the only legally binding international instrument dedicated to manipulation of sports competitions – by working with partners such as NOCs and regulators.
- Match fixers shift their targeted areas so integrity work cannot be stopped or paused even if a country or sport is clean.
ULIS thanked event partners, members and the IOC for their organizational support, as well as all speakers, panelist and participants for making the Integrity Seminar a great success.
