Sports integrity circa 2024 is rooted within sports betting integrity.
Fans have absorbed the spate of recent sports betting scandals and saw the corrosive effect of gambling.
Bettors see them and wonder if they’re getting a square deal.
Matt Holt sees them as a system that’s working.
As the CEO of IC360, a global integrity and compliance firm that works with virtually every pro sports league in the US, Holt is among the self-described “pillars” of purity for sports into which American fans and bettors invest so much passion and money.
Every sports betting scandal revealed, he told Gaming Today at the Sports Entertainment Innovation Conference, is a case study in success with a realization there’s much more to do.
“A lot of people look at the media and [think] this is something that’s happening because of sports betting,” he said. “No, this was always happening. We’re just now able to identify these bad actors in real time because of the commitment of the operators, because of the commitment of the professional and collegiate sports leagues, the amount of information-sharing that happens in real-time, and the guardrails and policies that are in place.
“We are able to identify all these instances of suspicious, malicious, nefarious activity. And thus we’re seeing so many more cases being brought public. But it’s not because sports betting is the root cause.
“It’s because the industry came together like it always does, and has been committed to ensuring that the sports everybody engages with, which all involve betting now, continue to be best on best.”
That’s had to be the case since the repeal of the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act in 2018. Illegal sports betting has been occurring along the margins for decades, but PASPA’s fall made the legal version mainstream.
“May 14, 2018, sports and sports betting collided and it will never be pulled apart again,” Holt said. “It just won’t be the content around all the events. Gaming is now a base part of that content and the event itself. So we’re never going back. The genie’s never going back in the bottle. And all we could do as an industry is ensure that we’re making it as safeguarded as possible.
“We have the right guardrails in place, we have the right policies and we’re using the right technology. Because if we’re not using technology, we’re probably failing.”
Though NCAA president Charlie Baker and MLB commissioner Rob Manfred expressed remorse this year that legal wagering didn’t remain a strictly Nevada enterprise, Holt believes leagues find the struggle to maintain integrity worth the reward of a rare new revenue stream.
“I think they do,” he said. “I hope all the leagues are happy and excited. They’re all clients of ours, so they seem happy and excited.”
NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum thinks the system is working.
Sports Betting Integrity a Real-Time Vigil
Holt said that IC360 averages around 15-to-20 sports betting integrity alerts per month, with more than 75% leading to “suspensions, bans, or arrests related to nefarious sports betting activity.”
That equates to the discovery of around 150 persons per year either betting on events their league disallows, manipulating matches, misusing inside information, or, Holt added, “participating in sports betting in an illegal or nefarious way.”
Holt conceded that the prospect of scandal has resulted in an environment where leagues “are all nervous,” in this nascent period of wide spread US sports betting. And they’re seeking out expertise.
Becky Harris, the former chair of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, was contacted by numerous sports leagues about integrity protocols she included in a 2021 paper.
“I can tell you that they’re recognizing that their players posting that they’re placing wagers from the locker room …that’s not a good look,” Harris said at SEIcon.
“Everybody in this space, their ultimate goal is to keep the players safe. Because without the players and without and integrity process, they don’t have a product.”
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ProhiBet A GateKeeper for Leagues, Schools
IC360 logged 235 cases of prohibited betting activity in 2023, marking a spike. The company responded in September by launching ProhiBet, a portal that allows leagues, conferences, and universities to catalog the names of anyone in close enough proximity to a team to manipulate betting. The encrypted information is available to operators to prevent those named from making forbidden bets.
"When a football player goes to bet football [on their sportsbook app] it says 'You're prohibited from placing this wager,' sends a notification to the league and to the operator in real-time. And we've already seen a massive downturn in the number of prohibited bettor cases.
"As long as we have the commitment to integrity from the major stakeholder groups, I think we'll be in good shape."
Legal sportsbooks have been crucial in identifying and blocking improper betting activity, from Josh Shaw — the first NFL player caught making forbidden bets — to banned NBA player Jontay Porter. John Ewing, the public relations manager of Media Insights at BetMGM, said his company takes seriously its position as one of Holt's pillars.
"We have these bad headlines, players betting on their sports. No one wants to see that: the leagues, the players, the teams, most importantly the fans," Ewing said at SEIcon.
"From an operator perspective, we really want to emphasize it's because of legal sports betting that we're aware of this. In the past, it would all be in the dark."
"We wouldn't know that these transactions were happening, but now we do and BetMGM — along with other operators — work with Matt's company to make sure that if there's irregular betting patterns, that we alert regulators, and then we're able to take action on that."
Another distasteful headline, but another success story.
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