Preventing the criminal risks linked to the sports betting market – Program details

Key Facts
Project full title: Preventing Criminal Risks Linked to the Sports Betting Market
Project acronym: PreCrimBet
Type of funding scheme: European Commission, DG Home Affairs Call for Proposals HOME/2014/PPXX/AG/SPBX
Call for proposal topic: New integrated mechanisms for cooperation between public and private actors to identify sports betting risks
Start date of the project: 01.01.2016
End date of the project: 30.06.2017
Total Cost: EUR 265 496
Total EU Contribution: EUR 238 896

Partners

Christian Kalb (CK Consulting) has worked in the betting industry for a number of years, and has been involved in sports governance as vice-president of the French Cycling Federation. As a consultant he has provided research competences and expertise in numerous international research and seminar programs on the subjects of betting and sport integrity. He also participated to the first IRIS EU programme on the fight against match-fixing, and co-authored the White Book titled “Money Laundering: The latest threat to sports betting?”.

University of Liverpool: Prof. David Forrest has been among the first academic expert to study the subject of match-fixing and the impacts of the betting market. He participated to the IRIS research programme on the fight against sport corruption and the IRIS EU programme “What national networks to fight against match fixing?”.

University of Hamburg: Dr Ingo Fiedler is an economist and his main expertise lies in the area of the regulation of gambling with a special focus on online gambling. Other topics include money laundering, e-payment, and social costs of addictive goods. Dr. Fiedler holds a position at University of Hamburg, Division on gambling. Besides serving the scientific community on gambling by publishing and reviewing articles, Dr. Fiedler adds to the public knowledge on gambling by commenting in various media outlets. His expertise was also sought by the European Parliament, the Financial Committee of the German Bundestag, Germany’s Ministry of Finance, Québec’s Ministry of Finance, and other institutions.

Danish Gambling Authority: Birgitte Sand is Director of the Danish Gambling Authority. She started her career in the Danish court of Taxation and moved on to a wide range of different tasks and management positions in the Ministry of Taxation covering legal advice on corporate tax structures and tax on private companies and property, the central IT department and projects regarding leadership, innovation, strategy, change of organizational structures and the development of a nationwide IT salary system. She was for many years also a member of the Board covering the nationwide planning of tax compliance projects. Since late 2011 Birgitte Sand has been a member of the International Association of Gaming Regulators (IAGR) Board of Trustees and chair of the IAGR Membership Subcommittee; she has served as Vice President of the association since October 2013.

Laurent Vidal (University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) is Chairman of the ICSS-Sorbonne Sport Integrity Program and co-director of the Department of Business Public Law of the Legal Research Institute of the Sorbonne – André Tunc (IRJS – Paris 1). He is an expert in public corporate law, specialising in contractual and regulatory activities involving French and foreign authorities and, more broadly, public projects related to the administration of private and public companies. He is also associate researcher at the IRISSO-CNRS (the French National Center for Research) at University Paris Dauphine.

Program phases

January 2016 – July 2016: research program
September 2016: publication of a scientific report containing the results of the research program
October 2016 – May 2017: organization of 12 national seminars
June 2017: organization of a final conference in Brussels and publication of the white book “Preventing criminal risks linked to the sports betting market”

Program objectives

The overall objectives of the program are to:
– Gain consistent and authoritative knowledge on the criminal risks linked to the sports betting market
– Assist national authorities in protecting the integrity of their betting activity. Considering that a vast majority of the current match-fixing threats are directly linked to the betting market, the protection of the betting integrity is a necessary step to protect, by extension, sports integrity in itself.
– Create or reinforce networks of concerned public and private stakeholders at national level (betting operators, betting regulators, sports organisations, ministries in charge of sport, law-enforcement, FIU, relevant experts).

As such, the programs aims at:

– Understanding the interests of criminal organizations or individuals to use the betting market as a tool for money laundering, fraud, sports corruption, etc.
– Identifying the criminal risk-factors linked to the sports betting market and its actors.
– Assessing the capacity of the current European betting markets to protect itself from criminal behaviour, as well as the capacities and responsibilities of relevant actors (operators, regulators, FIUs, law-enforcement, sports authorities, etc.).
– Proposing recommendations at the destination of national public authorities and private actors (sports organisations, betting operators).
– Fostering discussions and cooperation at national level between public and private entities
– Promoting other relevant initiatives (such as the implementation of the Convention of the Council of Europe on the manipulation of sports competitions).
– Proposing guidelines to national authorities in safeguarding betting and sports integrity.
– Identifying and promoting national good practices in the mitigation of criminal risks and the fight against organised crime.
– Provide contact points and information on national situations for the European institutions
– Provide recommendations for European action on the field of betting and criminal risks mitigation.