Zona de Azar Brazil – Brazil: SportRadar Claims Betting Houses Are Interested in Resolving Fraud

Brazil.- June 24, 2024 www.zonadeazar.com In statements to the CPI on Game Manipulation and Sports Betting, Felippe Marchetti explained the methods used by the company SportRadar to detect fraud and believed that many clubs and players in Brazil are vulnerable to proposals from businessmen linked to manipulation. of results.

He highlighted the international role of scammers in the competition and believes it is necessary to work on the groundwork to educate players against manipulation.

Audited as a witness, Marchetti is the integrity manager of SportRadar AG, a company based in Switzerland that provides services to the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) and several betting houses.

In his request for hearing (REQ 42/2024), Senator Romário (PL-RJ), rapporteur of the commission, cited a report published in March by SportRadar that highlights Brazil as the “world champion of fraud” in the sector, with 109 suspicious matches in a total of 9 thousand matches analyzed.

Citing SportRadar’s experience in partnerships with sports leagues and law enforcement authorities around the world, Marchetti highlighted the international activity of match-fixers, who would have discovered better opportunities in Latin America when the fight against fraud in Europe became more rigorous. For him, providing education to players is essential to combat manipulation.

— The vast majority of athletes in Brazil are in conditions of economic vulnerability. They [the manipulators] saw a very favorable scenario here for manipulation and starting in 2015 we saw an increase in cases. (…) The most susceptible, the most vulnerable, are the athletes from small clubs.

Artificial intelligence

Felippe Marchetti explained how SpotRadar’s artificial intelligence mechanisms work, which monitor betting odds (legal and illegal) in real time and compare real betting movements with those expected. He cited company reports that led to major investigations into game manipulation in Brazil, but stressed that exposing statistics does not replace the responsibility of qualitative analysis.

In response to Romário’s question, the company representative stated that betting houses would be interested in solving the fraud, because they also lose money through manipulation, but there is a lack of means for betting companies based abroad to report irregularities. to the Brazilian authorities. He defended Brazil’s accession to the Macolin Convention, which deals with the international fight against the manipulation of sports results.

— This flow of information between all actors is essential to fight against the system [of fraud], so that not only the betting houses, but also the athletes, the managers and all those interested in protecting the sport know how who to go to, how to go and how to transmit this information. will be processed after the complaint.

Romário considered that, despite years of investigations into manipulation, betting houses continue to have “million-dollar” losses and do not contact the Public Ministry.

—This is something that seems very strange to me. So I think there’s something, I don’t know what it is, I can’t even imagine it.

In response to Senator Eduardo Girão (Novo-CE), who also questioned the interest of so-called bets in combating manipulation, Marchetti agreed that betting houses are also victims of fraud.

— I welcome a betting house that sponsors an integrity service for a sports federation or sponsors a workshop for the clubs it sponsors.

Textor

Also in response to Romário, Marchetti said that SportRadar did not detect anomalies in the matches mentioned by businessman John Textor, Botafogo’s majority shareholder, as targets for manipulation.

— In fact, the movement of the betting market goes against the accusations, — he explained.

The president of the CPI, Senator Jorge Kajuru (PSB-GO), however cited the secret meeting of the committee with John Textor, in which the majority of the senators would have seen evidence. Marchetti said he could not speak to the methodology of other fraud monitoring companies; Textor cited the work of Good Game! —, but defended SportRadar’s analysis.

— Within our technique, our evaluation parameters, which are (…) validated both scientifically and by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, we do not verify any evidence or any indication of manipulation of the results in the aforementioned matches.

Marchetti considered that a confrontation between representatives of SportRadar and Good Game! would not make sense, but declared that “the one who has to explain the methodology with which they work is the company that is making the accusations.”

‘Coincidence’

Senator Styvenson Valentim (Vamos-RN) cited the case of the Globo Futebol Clube, from his state, which brought together 16 athletes from all over Brazil with “traces that they have already gone through a type of manipulation.” Felippe Marchetti, citing information, ruled out the possibility of a coincidence, recalling that Globo had manipulated two or three matches of the Potiguar Championship, but said that he could not categorically say that the club was aware of the fraud.

— We begin to compile, cross-reference the evidence we are taking from the betting market with the athletes’ records, and then we can predict, many times, what could happen.

Styvenson requested a copy of a report from SportRadar that, analyzing the history of the athletes and the financial situation of the entities, identified ten clubs with the potential for manipulation, of which eight were actually involved in cases of fraud. Felippe Marchetti stressed that all reports of suspicious departures from the last two years are now available for IPC examination.

Senator Carlos Portinho (PL-RJ) assessed that the CBF lacks care in detecting fraud, since the country’s most important championships are supervised by SportRadar through an agreement with FIFA to issue one-page reports .

— It is not possible that (…), even after the opening of this CPI, the CBF has not more strongly contracted a report from a company, or two, or three, or as many as were necessary to guarantee the integrity of the competitions — said Portinho.

Organized crime

The senators also expressed their concern about the revelation of an alleged debt of the Santa Casa da Misericórdia of Lisbon – which bought the company MCE, game operator of the Rio de Janeiro State Lottery (Loterj) – with the organization Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC). ). Felippe Marchetti declared that he was unaware of the specific case or cases of participation of organized crime in match-fixing in Brazil, but did not rule out the hypothesis.

— This is what we see at the international level, for example, in the Albanian mafia, which is dedicated to arms and people trafficking. These guys are involved in match fixing in the Balkan region. So, thinking with an organized crime boss, it would make sense for organized crime to get involved in the issue of match-fixing.

Styvenson, who asked the CPI for a hearing from a Loterj representative, expressed distrust of the Rio de Janeiro gaming agency’s “resistance” to the adoption of transparency and compliance mechanisms.

— You have to call the state company here to clarify things like that, why not call [SportRadar]. I don’t know if SportRadar was invited, because it did a workshop with Paraná, but it didn’t do it with Loterj.

Kajuru added that he is not afraid to take on the CCP in the CPI if necessary.

He edited: @_fonta www.zonadeazar.com