The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) has released Spanish and Portuguese language versions of its Optimum Betting Market study in recognition of the burgeoning Latin American sorts wagering sector.

By updating the report, the IBIA hopes to ‘assist the development of betting regulation’ in countries in the region such as Brazil by assessing existing regulatory models in Colombia, Mexico and Argentina. The organisation also intends to contribute to integrity discussions in Portugal and Spain via the translations.

H2 Gambling Capital – which conducted the global report in June of this year, finding ‘no corruption issues in 99.96% of surveyed markets’ – valued the LatAm market at $1.3 billion in gross wins in 2020, whilst predicting a near threefold increase by 2025 to $3.4 billion.

“The burgeoning Latin American sports betting market is an increasingly important focus for IBIA members’ business operations,” said Khalid Ali, IBIA CEO. “It is also unfortunately the focus of corrupters seeking to manipulate sporting events to defraud betting operators. 

“Indeed, between 2017 and the end of the third quarter of 2021, IBIA alerted the relevant authorities to 112 cases of suspicious betting across 15 Latin American countries and 4 different sports.”

In assessing regulatory practices in 20 different jurisdictions, H2 Gamlbing Capital cooperated with major betting industry trade associations such as the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), the European Gaming and Betting Association (EGBA), Sweden’s BOS, Spain’s Jdigital and the Netherlands Online Gaming Association (NOGA). 

As well as assessing regulations, the study also aims to examine the impact of product restrictions, determine the cost of match fixing to regulated operators – match manipulation was deemed to cost the sector $25 million annually – and provide an ‘optimum betting market solution’ in the form of ten regulatory pillars.

Commenting on the updated LatAm focused report, Ali continued: “It is hoped that this report will provide some assistance to Latin American policymakers, sports and betting operators in responding to the threat to the integrity of sport and to developing effective betting regulation. 

“Integrity has been a core part of the betting market discussion in North America, with the integrity standards recently published by Ontario seen as a best practice model; IBIA would like to see this focus and approach replicated across Latin America and beyond.”