The Global Lottery Monitoring System hosted the close of the women’s sport Integriball campaign as a highlight of an ‘incredible’ month of work in November.
Publishing its December 2021 newsletter, the authority noted that the project supported youth players and women’s athletes from Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece and Malta, educating them on the potential manipulation of results through match-fixing.
Closing the project, GLMS said that educating in a tailor-made way was key, with the methods customised to each country and focused on recognising, understanding and acting against manipulations in football.
Meanwhile, the monitoring system contributed to the awareness-raising sessions of Integrisport Next alongside European lotteries Svenska Spel and Veikkaus.
The sessions focused on engaging in a multistakeholder approach to addressing manipulations of sports competitions, underlining the importance of both law enforcement and the judiciary in tackling the phenomenon.
GLMS also highlighted its attendance at the SBC event, Betting on Sports Europe 2021. During the event, held at Stamford Bridge and the National History Museum, President Ludovico Calvi was inducted into the SBC’s European Hall of Fame for over 30 years of steady expertise and work in the field of sports betting.
Commenting on his induction, Calvi said: “It is an honour to be inducted into the Sports Betting Hall of Fame and I would like to express my deep appreciation to SBC for hosting a terrific event despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. I am also grateful to several industry leaders, some close friends and colleagues, for sponsoring my candidacy.
“For me to be inducted into the Sports Betting Hall of Fame is a recognition by the industry of having contributed to raise the standards of excellence, always supporting regulated, responsible and sustainable betting market environments while safeguarding the level of integrity and customer protection throughout the journey.”
Operationally, GLMS alerted its partners to 17 matches in November potentially manipulated by bad actors. On top of those, four analysis reports were produced by GMLS at the request of its members.
Finally, the organisation has played a pivotal role in the multistakeholder Integrity Task Force for the inaugural Arab Cup hosted by FIFA.
Aiming to “enhance the protection of integrity by means of a task force that enables the efficient exchange of information on possible threats in real-time”, GLMS has joined forces with other integrity bodies such as Qatar Safety and Security Operations Committee (SSOC), the Council of Europe and its Group of Copenhagen, INTERPOL, Sportradar and the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) to ensure the inaugural Arab Cup is played out without the potential for bad actors to manipulate.
Closing the latest newsletter, Calvi concluded: “Our Operations team continues to monitor sports competitions, tirelessly analysing suspicious trading patterns, and alerting cases to our partners and members.
“I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to continue to stay vigilant and strong, and to wish you a great festive season and end of the year.”