ARF Council Archives

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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Please refer to our FAQ for more information about the ARF Council and Illegal Betting

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.

Offshore Betting and Gambling Licensing - The Pseudo Regulation of Betting explains how the growth and globalisation of internet-based (‘online’) illegal betting in the past several decades has been accompanied by the expansion of offshore jurisdictions that purport to license online gambling and betting on markets in other jurisdictions.

The Invisible Empire: How Singapore court cases unmasked a multi-billion-Dollar Illegal Betting Syndicate shows that the recent convictions in Singapore’s biggest-ever money laundering case directly linked to illegal betting syndicates spanning China, the Philippines, Cambodia, Dubai and Europe underline how illegal betting, money laundering, organised crime and corruption often go hand-in-hand.

Betting Blindspot: Sports' Urgent Need to Understand Global Gambling Complexities explores how betting behaviour from professional sportspeople are a reminder of the potential impact on sport’s reputation and integrity from close ties with betting operators who may not have.

Franchise Wars - How Citibet and Asia's Other Biggest Bookmakers have 'McDonaldised' Illegal Betting shows how illegal horse racing betting exchange Citibet and other leading Asian operators have massively expanded their potential market even faster than in previous years by offering their markets as software “plug-ins” to thousands of illegal betting sites.

Education, education, education: the Importance of Training in Combatting Illegal Betting  ARF Council member Brent Fisher explains the innovative educational measures implemented in Victoria to empower these officials with the knowledge and tools necessary to combat the challenges posed by illegal betting and other integrity threats on horse racing.

Regulating the Legal Market and Preventing Illegal Betting explains some of the key challenges faced by consumers and regulators alike posed by illegal betting markets – and the danger of over-regulating the easily understood legal market at the expense of tackling the illegal market.

How Illegal Betting and Related Money Laundering Flourished Despite 'Crypto Winter' explores how the use of cryptocurrencies – particularly Tether – is now increasingly the norm in illegal betting markets as we enter 2024.

New Research shows the Massive Scale of Illegal Betting in South Korea ARF Council member Tak Sung Hyun provides a summary in English of the research prepared and published by the Korean Institute of Criminology and Justice, which includes key findings, and recommendations to tackle this huge problem of illegal betting.

The Model of Combatting Illegal Betting outlines the components of a national model that is an example to other countries in combatting illegal betting, which requires collaboration between government agencies, private sector entities in the technology and finance sectors, racing and sports operators as well as regulators.

How Live Streaming is Boosting Illegal Betting illustrates how technology platforms popular among youth are being exploited by illegal betting operators to promote their products, especially on the exploitation of live-platforms to promote cryptocurrency betting sites.

Lessons from a Life Spent Protecting Racing from Illegal Betting – How Monitoring Betting Markets is the Key to Safeguard Racing Integrity ARF Council member Kim Kelly shares key guiding principles as former Chief Stipendiary Steward with the Hong Kong Jockey Club on how to be an effective racing Steward to uphold the confidence and integrity of the sport.

Advertising of Betting Websites in India explores the complex set of regulations revolving promotions for online betting and the loopholes that have allowed betting websites to function, evade enforcement and led to a surge in such advertising.

Cooperation between Racing and Other Sports with Law Enforcement Agencies highlights the importance of ensuing a clear identification of roles and cooperation between racing and other sports with law enforcement agencies to protect the integrity of racing and other sports.

Recent Racing Integrity Cases Involving Betting: Britain - Danny Brock & Others; Australia - Tommy Berry & Others reviews two recent racing integrity investigations, one from Britain and one from Australia involving allegations that jockeys conspired to supply privileged information to others for mutual financial gain and to the detriment of their sport.

Back to the Future - Macau Junkets and Illegal Betting shows how Macau junket operators and their close associates in Chinese organised crime groups (triad societies) have long been key drivers of online illegal betting in Asia (both sports betting and online casino).

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Transnational Crime, Money Laundering and Illegal Online Bettingin Southeast Asia examines illegal online betting and gambling in Southeast Asia in the context of transnational crime and money laundering in the region.

INTERPOL – Combatting Illegal Betting andMoney Laundering during the Qatar World Cup explains how INTERPOL is uniquely placed to enable worldwide law enforcement agencies to work together beyond borders to tackle corruption in sport and target illegal betting through operational response, analytical support and capacitybuilding.

How the World Lottery Association Approaches Illegal Betting and Works to Protect the Integrity of Sport to ensure that the lotteries and sports betting operators continue to provide legal betting services and products that are safe and secure, while entertaining for all.

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Token Gestures - The Impact of Emerging New Technologies on Racing and Other Sports highlights how emerging technologies (e.g. Web3, NFTs, Metaverse, GameFi, etc.) are changing how betting operators deliver their products and how customers see betting.

The Displacement of Illegal Betting and Transnational Organised Crime provides an overview of how Illegal Betting and Organised Crime is spreading.

The Formation of Law Enforcement in Sports Integrity in Victoria is a personal sharing from former Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police on why and how the Sports Integrity Intelligence Unit was established.

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The three in-depth articles from ARF Council members in this edition deep dives into topics such as sports betting data, Ireland's gambling regulatory reforms, and recent illegal betting typologies in Asia.

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The three in-depth articles from ARF Council members in this edition deep dives into issues related to illegal betting and financial crime impacting integrity in racing and other sports.

This bulletin highlights and summarises ARF Council's major new publication ‘The State of Illegal Betting’, which can be downloaded here, as well as articles regarding Macau casino junkets and illegal betting and tote manipulation for illegal market betting.

In this bulletin, ARF Council members Douglas Robinson and James Porteous describe social media advertising of illegal betting in Hong Kong and illustrate the growing trend of illegal betting operators flooding social media channels with advertising to reach new demographics of customers, in particular younger people in Generation Z.

In this bulletin, Professor Sally Gainsbury, Director of Gambling Treatment & Research Clinic at the University of Sydney, shares research finding which looks into how legitimate websites, regulators and authorities can use behavioural science to steer customers away from illegal operators, and also explores factors that caused a person to pick one gambling website over another.

This edition of the Quarterly Bulletin highlights two important issues related to illegal betting that have wider relevance to integrity in horse racing and other sports.

ARF Council Member Tim Robinson highlights an important case study in Australia where Racing Victoria collaborated with the Victoria Police to protect the integrity of their racing.

ARF Council Member Brant Dunshea explains the increased use of unauthorised drones intruding onto racecourses.

The issue of use of blockchain and cryptocurrencies in the betting industry is critical as illegal betting operators move quickly to adapt to new technologies and regulatory loopholes/grey areas, leading to an advantage in illegal markets over legal betting markets. Unregulated cryptocurrencies are a fundamental threat to legal, licensed, regulated betting markets as they allow customers to play anonymously and operators to avoid Anti-Money Laundering procedures. The legal betting industry as well as credible regulators need to urgently cooperate to ensure that effective regulatory structures and processes are developed in order to avoid cryptocurrencies benefitting the growth of the illegal betting markets, and in doing so further funding transnational organised crime groups.

In this edition, Graham Ashton explains why horse racing is ideally placed to help protect sports integrity and prevent organised criminality from infiltrating sport. As a former commissioner of police who established one of the first law enforcement sports integrity units, Graham is well placed to explain why horse racing has matured with the inter-relationship between its product and betting, and led the development of sports anti-corruption measures.

Also, James Porteous, Council Secretary, gives an overview of our new publication, Good Practices in Addressing Illegal Betting: A Handbook for Horse Racing and Other Sports to Uphold Integrity. All of the members of the Council have collaborated to compile this essential guide to protecting integrity in horse racing and other sports from corruption caused by illegal betting.

In this bulletin, Professor Jack Anderson, Director of Studies, Sports Law, at the University of Melbourne provides a summary of a study conducted for Harness Racing Victoria which shows the positive impact on horse racing and other sports of integrity units.

In this first bulletin, we outline changes in the betting markets resulting from the Covid-19 pandemic and what this may mean for betting on horse racing and sports in the longer term.