Criminals, not betting industry, to blame for match-fixing ‘cancer’, Sportradar’s integrity chief Andreas Krannich says
- The former Bundesliga official says wherever there is sport, betting is not far behind but it’s unfair to blame the industry for match-fixing
- Krannich says the expansion of sports coverage globally has given criminals easier access to the more vulnerable leagues
Criminals, and not betting, are to blame for the match-fixing “cancer” that continues to blight global sports, the head of Sportradar’s integrity services said.
Andreas Krannich, who worked for 10 years with the German Bundesliga, said wherever there was sport, betting would follow. And the global gambling industry has kept pace with the explosion of sports coverage and its consumption around the world over the past two decades.
“[Match-fixing] is not because the betting companies are offering [odds], it is because there are criminals out in the market,” said Krannich, Sportradar’s managing director for integrity services. “I don’t want this to come out the wrong way but sports and politicians like to blame betting, saying if there was no betting there’d be no match-fixing.
“From the moment sport becomes prominent there will be betting on it. Between friends first, then if there is a bigger appetite, the bookmaker will offer it, whether it is a legitimate bookmaker, black market operator, a lottery, private businesses or whoever.”
According to ResearchAndMarkets.com, the sports betting market was valued at US$85 billion in 2019, while a Statista report in January said the global sports betting industry reached a market size of US$203 billion in 2020, featuring almost 31,000 businesses employing 197,000 employees.