Papers

The ARF’s latest compendium of 2 major reports and 18articles collates the Council’s latest research on the threat of illegal betting markets to the integrity of racing and other sports. From February 2023to April 2024, the ARF Council's Bulletins have been shedding light on the ways technological breakthroughs can be exploited by organised crime, all of which are now included in one edition.

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The report provides an analysis of variable Betting Duty (tax) rates on racing and sports betting operators to assess the impact on legal markets of higher rates and the related impact on betting turnover in the illegal betting markets. The economic impact of excessive Betting Duty in the Internet age is to drive consumers to the illegal betting market.

The report shows how illegal betting and related cyber-scam operations linked to human trafficking are utilised by transnational organised groups causing corruption and financial crime on a global scale.

The document is an up-to-date summary of the key issues that the ARF Council believes are relevant to illegal betting, which are broad and range from driving corruption in racing and sports, the growth of organised crime,the negative social issues (e.g. greater gambling harm, people trafficking),and taxation loss.

This compendium is a collection of ARF Council Bulletin articles from July 2020 to December 2022 covering topics related to anti-illegal betting and related financial crime.

The State of Illegal Betting report examines the current situation of illegal betting, what this means in relation to legal betting, and what both will look like in the future. The report includes analysis of more than 500 betting websites to examine their licensing status, products offered, website traffic, server locations and other data points.

The report also includes a series of commentaries from ARF Council members on how sports data can fuel illegal betting; the greater negative impacts of illegal betting and gambling-related harm; international and intergovernmental issues around corruption in sport; and notable examples and development in sports law in relation to illegal betting.  The report also includes contributions from INTERPOL and the UNODC regarding their views on the relationship between illegalbetting, sports corruption, and organised crime.

This report examines Mainland China’s crackdown on illegal betting from 2018 to mid-2021, its background, purpose and impact. It is based on official announcements and statistics, 315 Mainland Chinese media articles related to illegal betting, and English-language reports. The report details:

• Why China is so concerned about illegal betting
• Insights into the scale of the problem
• The crackdown’s impact on wider illegal betting in Asia
• Notable shared characteristics of illegal betting operations
• Why China’s crackdown is relevant to other jurisdictions

This report explains how and why cryptocurrencies have become increasingly prevalent in illegal betting, and highlights the threats this poses.

This report examines the impact of the pandemic on illegal betting in Asia in 2020 and finds that COVID-19 caused a surge in illegal betting, and has caused disruption and changes in customer behaviour that will continue to be felt even after the pandemic subsides.

This Handbook highlights the risks to the integrity of horse racing and other sports from illegal betting-related sports corruption, and provides practical guidance to administrators and other key stakeholders for mitigating against and combatting such corruption.

Practical guidance in the Handbook includes an overview of major issues around illegal betting, how to conduct bet monitoring and betting analysis, intelligence gathering and analysis, how to conduct illegal betting investigations, and how to engage stakeholders to combat illegal betting and related corruption.

This paper covers illegal betting markets in six ARF jurisdictions. Although these jurisdictions are different in many ways, key commonalities were found in relation to illegal betting:

• it funds organised crime,
• it harms society directly and indirectly, and
• it is a threat to sporting integrity.

This paper provides insights into the scale and nature of these negative impacts.