2024-04-23 06:00:18
- The International Olympic Committee and UEFA will monitor betting through special software
- Attempts at manipulation will be considered fraud, in our country the sentence for this is from 1 to 8 years in prison
A hot summer awaits sports betting lovers, because the Olympic Games in Paris and the European Football Championship, which will be held in Germany, are coming together.
Since its inception, the Olympic Games have been one of the main sports betting tournaments. The advantage is the variety of sports – someone who is not interested in tennis can watch athletics, for example, and try to guess who will win a medal.
Gambling operators will list all sports on their sites and provide odds for every aspect of the games so that betting is possible with just a few clicks online. However, they themselves warn that sports betting should be used for entertainment and not as a main source of income.
The expectations of supervisory and control bodies from all over the world are that the colossal 120 billion euros will be played out during the Olympics and the European football championship. In order for competitions and betting to be fair, the possibilities for manipulation of sporting events must be minimized.
Preparations for this have already begun, huh
online bets will be monitored continuously
The control comes from specialized units of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and UEFA, and it will also be applied in Bulgaria. The organization for this was created at a special meeting that took place on April 11 and 12 at the IOC headquarters in Lausanne. The investigation process with the relevant software and the interaction mechanism was demonstrated at the meeting.
Through a special IBIS system, betting on all competitions during the Olympic Games will be monitored. “We will work together with operators, associations and major regulatory bodies to share information about irregular betting patterns or suspicious betting activities that may suggest result manipulation,” said Friedrich Martens, head of the Olympic Committee’s control unit.
Information will also be collected on whether people accredited for the Olympics – delegates, athletes, coaches and others – make bets, because this is strictly prohibited.
UEFA has a special prevention program. The Match-fixed Evaluation Group will manage the monitoring before and during a competition. This is a guarantee that
UEFA can immediately review and address any potential threats to the integrity of the tournament,
says Vincent Venn, head of UEFA’s anti-match-fixing department.
Regulators and investigative bodies in the states will exchange information about the bets made and whether some of them seem suspicious, specified Alexander Popov – Director of the Directorate for Gambling Control at the NRA. And he added that since February we have been in negotiations with the IOC to sign an information exchange agreement to support this type of investigation.
There is an international convention that regulates the actions. It provides for states that are parties to it to have investigative bodies and exchange information.
In Bulgaria, the NRA is charged with these functions,
and the development of the control processes for the Olympics and European football is done under the personal leadership of the head of the agency Rumen Spetsov. Active work is already underway and the NRA is acting proactively, before the convention has become mandatory, Spetsov pointed out.
Alerts of manipulation will be responded to and confirmed by cross-checking with information from other jurisdictions and sports federations.
“The Olympic Committee has software through which applications are sent to the countries that can do an inspection. The NRA can check whether an athlete or persons from his environment have placed bets on a sports event in which they participate.
Similar agreements already exist, with supervisory authorities, sports federations and betting companies participating in them,” Popov clarifies.
If anyone is found to be carrying out such activity, action will be coordinated with the IOC, UEFA and Interpol. At a later stage, it is planned to have a special unit in the prosecutor’s office and the Ministry of the Interior.
Manipulation of sports events will be considered cheating, and such a crime carries a prison sentence of 1 to 8 years under the current legislation.
In Bulgaria, it is yet to be specified how the stakes will be handled when manipulations are detected. If they directly affect the outcome of the event, one can think about canceling the bets made, because through them large profits will be paid and thus the tax base that should be taxed by the operator’s activity will be reduced. It will be specified whether such measures should cover all participants or only the unscrupulous ones.
Currently, the NRA has information that there are several investigations into sports events in Bulgaria, which does not yet mean that there are manipulations. The investigation of the targeted cases is not done by us, but by the competent authorities, we are only notified, Popov clarifies. According to him, if it is found that there are manipulations and more people are involved, the definition of organized criminal groups can also be applied.
Popov did not commit to an answer to the question of the size of the bets that are expected during the Olympics and the European football championship, but specified that in view of the growth of the market and the digitization of services, the amount will certainly be quite large.
“We are active and will do our job as best as possible. Gambling is a highly technological industry, which necessitates more frequent amendments to the legislation in order for it to respond to trends, which is why some regulatory provisions are expected to be updated,” Popov said categorically.
And he adds that sports and bets should be fun, and those who have decided to try their luck should not forget that gambling should not be a way of life.
The NRA closed 720 sites in just three months, more than 2,000 in total
The NRA has a record for “catching” and closing sites for illegal bets in the first three months of the year.
The tax authorities have suspended 720 such pages on the Internet for gambling by companies without a valid license under the Gambling Act. For comparison, in 2023, a total of 1,963 such platforms were established.
According to the established procedure, after the publication of the decision on the NRA page, the sites indicated in it should cease their activity within 3 days. If this does not happen, the tax authorities refer to the court that the unregulated online platforms are accessible and bets can be made through them. Magistrates order ISPs to terminate access to the pages and their subdomains.
The decisions of the National Revenue Agency and the orders of the Sofia District Court can be found in the “Online gambling” section on the website of the revenue agency. The NRA also maintains an up-to-date list of sites through which gambling games are organized without a license. In case a user comes across an unregulated online betting platform, he can report it to the revenue agency by email [email protected]. In it, it is necessary to indicate the site and the Internet provider. Detailed information can be found in the “Responsible Gambling” section on the NRA website and on the agency’s YouTube channel.