ST. GALLEN, Switzerland — The global campaign to protect fair play in sport registered measurable gains in 2025, as the number of suspicious matches worldwide declined amid intensified monitoring, enforcement, and education efforts, according to the latest annual integrity report of Sportradar Group AG.
In its report, Integrity in Action 2025: Global Analysis & Trends, the company said it monitored more than 1,000,000 sporting events across 70 disciplines last year. Of these, 1,116 were flagged as suspicious — a modest but meaningful 1 percent decline from 2024.
More than 99.5 percent of events were monitored without any signs of irregular betting activity, underscoring what the firm described as sustained momentum in global integrity efforts.
Regional trends showed a mixed but generally stabilizing picture. Europe continued to account for the highest number of suspicious matches, though cases fell by 66 compared with the previous year, extending the region’s downward trajectory. South America posted a similarly positive shift, recording 64 fewer cases year-on-year.
In contrast, Asia, Africa, and North and Central America saw slight increases, highlighting the uneven nature of integrity risks across jurisdictions.
By sport, soccer remained the most impacted, with 618 suspicious matches detected — more than half of the global total. Basketball followed with 233 cases. Tennis (78), table tennis (65), and cricket (59) registered notable increases, reflecting what analysts describe as a diffusion effect, where match-fixing risks are no longer concentrated in a single discipline but dispersed across multiple sports ecosystems.
A key driver of improved detection in 2025 was the continued evolution of Sportradar’s AI-powered Universal Fraud Detection System (UFDS AI). Leveraging machine learning and large-scale betting data analytics, the platform strengthened its capacity to identify irregular patterns in real time — patterns often undetectable through traditional monitoring methods.
Suspicious matches flagged through AI analysis rose 56 percent year-on-year, signaling both enhanced detection capability and the increasingly sophisticated nature of manipulation attempts.
Enforcement remained a central pillar of the integrity framework. In 2025, Sportradar supported 125 sporting sanctions across seven sports and all six major continents, pushing the cumulative total of supported sanctions beyond 1,000. Preventive efforts also expanded significantly, with integrity education initiatives reaching more than 34,000 participants — a 25 percent increase from the previous year.
Andreas Krannich, Executive Vice President for Integrity Services at Sportradar, described the stabilization in suspicious match numbers as encouraging but cautioned against complacency.
“The relative stabilisation of suspicious match numbers in 2025 is encouraging, yet it reinforces the importance of continued vigilance. Match-fixing remains an evolving threat, and sustained investment in technology, intelligence, education, and collaboration is essential to staying ahead of those seeking to corrupt sport,” Krannich said.
Throughout 2025, the company provided integrity oversight for several marquee tournaments, including the FIFA Club World Cup and the UEFA Women’s EURO. Preparations are already underway for major global competitions in 2026, among them the AFC Women’s Asian Cup, the FIFA World Cup, and the Olympic Winter Games.
As global sport grows more commercialized and interconnected, integrity systems are evolving in parallel. The data from 2025 suggests that while match-fixing threats persist, coordinated technology-driven safeguards, cross-border cooperation, and expanded education programs are steadily strengthening the defensive line protecting competitive fairness worldwide.