For the last eight months, The Athletic has been investigating the threat of fixing to the integrity of sport. In this first article in the series, we uncover the sheer scale of the threat around the globe, with hundreds of sporting events subject to suspicious betting patterns as sporting federations and enforcement agencies struggle to keep up.
Also in this series:
With gambling arrests in NBA and MLB, what can the U.S. learn from Europe’s scars
The World Cup promises to be the most-watched event in the history of sport. As a consequence, it will also be one of the most lucrative events on which bookmakers have ever offered odds.
With huge betting markets already established in East Asia and Europe, and the astonishing rise of prediction markets in the United States, games at soccer’s most prestigious tournament will invite wagers on everything from who will score the next goal to who will emerge the overall winner.
With the vast sums of money involved in these betting markets, there is the risk that the World Cup will be targeted by spot fixing, the practice of manipulating events within a game — rather than the overall result — in order to cheat the bookmakers. An example might be a player deliberately receiving a yellow card in a particular window of time in a game.
How serious is the threat of spot fixing at the tournament? The Athletic can reveal that at least two players at the World Cup, representing different nations, have been reported by independent integrity experts to the national federations where they play their club football on suspicion of spot fixing.
One case, from earlier this season, involves a player who allegedly deliberately received a yellow card in a league match to ensure the resulting suspension would be served before a big upcoming derby, guaranteeing their availability.
However, this scheme was discussed widely enough in advance to lead to an unusually high level of stakes on his booking — leading to the match being flagged by monitoring systems. The incident, and the betting patterns around it, was also reported to the relevant country’s national federation. The Athletic asked the country’s FA whether the case was being actively investigated but they did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
The second case was triggered by an alert last month, when, in emails seen by The Athletic, two separate bookmakers reported suspicious betting activity. The bets had been placed on a player receiving a card during the first half of a league game; the player was booked after committing three fouls in fewer than five first-half minutes. A well-placed source, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect relationships, confirmed that the case had been reported to the integrity unit of the appropriate national federation.
The Athletic is not naming either player so as not to compromise any investigation.
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Asked if match-fixing had been discussed as a potential issue in advance of the tournament, FIFA responded: “FIFA has a zero-tolerance policy against match manipulation and provides a dedicated, highly secure and web-based whistleblowing system so that individuals can report any form or knowledge of potential match manipulation or integrity-related misconduct.”
Sports integrity experts warn that spot fixing, while not always effecting the overall outcome of a sporting event, can represent the top of a slippery slope to ever more serious fixes.
“A player might think that yellow cards don’t affect the game as such, but the problem is that they’re a starting point,” says Chris Kronow Rasmussen, an independent expert in international match-fixing. “It’s the start of your career in fixing — it might be another yellow card next time, then it might be nine corners, then something more, for your teammates to help you concede three goals or more. These people have leverage over you, they can blackmail you to keep you fixing games.”
The first recorded fix is documented on a tattered roll of papyrus dating from 267AD.
Demetrius, a teenage wrestler appearing in the 138th Great Antinoeia, a set of religious games in Egypt, agrees in this contract “to fall three times and yield”. According to the scroll’s translator, King’s College London professor Dominic Rathbone, he will be paid 3,800 drachmas — roughly the cost of a donkey.
Over the next 1700 years, the stakes have increased, but the practice has remained the same; stories consuming some of sport’s highest profile figures — the Chicago White Sox, Sonny Liston, South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje.
In the 2020s, the number of investigations have only accelerated, powered by an explosion in online gambling. Advertisements for online gambling platforms can be seen at almost every sporting event and most broadcasters and media outlets, including The Athletic, take betting sponsorship.
Recent months have brought a slew of high-profile integrity investigations across global sport.
In November, the NBA was rocked by an FBI investigation which led to 34 people being charged in illegal gambling schemes, including current players and coaches Chauncey Billups, Damon Jones, Terry Rozier, and Jontay Porter. In mid-January, federal prosecutors charged 26 men with alleged conspiracy to manipulate basketball games at college level. Also in November, Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz were accused of receiving bribes to rig their pitches. All those involved deny wrongdoing.
Cleveland Guardians pitcher Luis Ortiz arrives for his arraignment at court in New York (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
In a long-running and ongoing probe in Turkey, over 1,000 players from across the country’s football leagues were suspended along with 149 referees and assistants, with dozens arrested. This March, Czech police opened a criminal investigation after identifying 47 cases of suspected bribery and match-fixing in the country’s football leagues, while four footballers in Australia were convicted of offences this winter (a fifth, Ulises Davila, a former Chelsea player, pled guilty to fixing-related charges and was fined).
Over the past eight months, The Athletic has investigated the scale of match-fixing in modern sport, especially in football, the world’s most popular game, and tennis, one of its most vulnerable fronts. Upcoming articles will detail exactly how a fix works, the industry’s relationship with organised crime, and whether those claiming to protect sport have become part of its problems.
In the course of this reporting, The Athletic has uncovered:
That two players going to the World Cup have been reported to the national federations where they play their club football because of suspicions of spot fixing
Highly suspicious betting patterns around the matches of a current top tennis player
Suspicions of fixing across multiple matches at a recent FIFA international tournament
Matches involving amateur teams and children being subject to multi-million dollar bets on the unlicensed market
That women’s sport is increasingly becoming a target for fixers as more betting markets are offered
“I’m not surprised,” says one former integrity chief at one of the world’s most high-profile sporting bodies, speaking anonymously in order share their opinions candidly. “Our athletes are financial instruments of the betting industry.”
There are many forms of fixing, but broadly, it works as follows: an organised group will scour the betting market to identify potentially favourable odds. They will then employ a mule, or middle-man, to target individuals involved in the game. This could be players, coaches, or referees.
Once recruited, the exact nature of what they are asked to do can change. Sometimes, the result of a match is at stake — players may be asked to ensure they lose the upcoming game, for example. Historically, this was always the most common technique, with punters predominantly betting on the final result of contests.
However, as betting has become more sophisticated, supercharged by the rise of the digital betting industry, so have the fixers. It is now possible to bet on almost any aspect of a sporting contest — the scorers of the first goal, winner of the first set, number of yellow cards, even the colour of a team’s socks. Fixing these elements of a match is known as spot fixing, which is now the most rampant form of manipulation across the globe.
The Group of Copenhagen are on the frontline against the fixers. A network of national platforms fighting manipulation, together they advise and inform the Macolin Convention — a multilateral treaty organised by the Council of Europe, which seeks to address fixing by changing international law. Their monitoring system is one of the most sophisticated in the world.
Their numbers demonstrate just how widespread that fixing is. The Athletic has seen the group’s database of suspicious football matches between January and late November 2025. The definition of a suspicious betting pattern differs between regulators, but broadly, it refers to when the gambling market evolves in a highly illogical way, with corruption a plausible explanation as to why it defies normal betting behaviours.
Each of these suspicious patterns is graded yellow, orange, or red, in escalating severity, for potential police investigation.
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They catalogued over 1,000 suspicious football matches, with the three most common countries featured being India, Australia, and Vietnam.
Analysts sound a note of warning with data like this — countries with better monitoring systems will naturally find more suspicious matches. Australia, for example, which has a specialist national sports integrity unit, is particularly highly-rated, meaning that though they find a high number of cases, other countries with weaker systems may be more corrupt.
Australia, nevertheless, is still of particular interest to fixers. This may be due to its time zone, with games often being the highest profile matches during East Asia’s evening primetime, often considered the hub of the global sport gambling industry.
Other nations, where monitoring levels may not be as high, are also treated cautiously by betting companies. Here, they will set extremely low limits on any stakes. One industry insider told The Athletic that these included Bulgaria, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Tunisia, Bhutan, Uganda, and Kenya.
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It means that countries which have the illusion of integrity, such as Australia or western Europe, are far more valuable to fixers, with bookmakers allowing punters to place higher stakes — and access far larger profits.
“The level of fixing is steady, if not increasing,” says Lucy Miles, head of the financial crime team at Europol. “It comes back to the challenges of accessibility and the availability of modern technology. We see that a lot of the manipulation of match-fixing takes place in a particular country, but the organisers behind it are in another.
“We’ve estimated that 65 percent of the world’s betting is done in the Asian market. There’s a lot of unregulated betting there, and they’re probably one of the engines in the European market.”
It speaks to the interconnectedness of the global fixing economy — in which illegal betting on the other side of the world generates funds to organise manipulation, through a proxy team of fixers, in another country entirely.
Asia and Europe are the most common continents for fixes, with 384 and 352 suspicious games each according to the Marcolin Group, followed by South America, with 110. Another, more recent trend, is a change in the most popular months for fixing — whereas it previously used to be in May and June, at the end of the football season, experts are now wondering why the final three months of the year are predominant.
“It is basically every sport in every continent,” says Rasmussen. “Of course, the sports where you see the highest turnover are the most popular, the biggest targets, because of the size of the market.
“If there is any sport where we haven’t had a public scandal yet, it’s because we don’t have the tools to detect it.»
Another who has devoted his career to fighting match-fixing is Spanish researcher Francesco Baranca, a veteran of several national and international integrity bodies. Baranca is visibly passionate about what he does — frequently dissolving into fits of giggles as he describes a sporting landscape filled with ironies and black humour.
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Over recent years, he has begun independently tracking and cataloguing suspicious matches alongside a small group of collaborators, and shared his data from the second half of 2025 with The Athletic.
“Normally, in one weekend, I’ll receive more than 100 alerts,” he explains. “That doesn’t mean all of them are fixed, some can be explained, but every weekend there are 20 to 30 serious attempts at fixing. Then sometimes we can also get tips from bookmakers — on yellow card markets, or similar — when they do a deeper analysis of the markets which are not predictable.”
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On his list of suspicious matches, which he reports to the relevant bodies off his own back, are a string of high-profile games — as well as niche markets where the ability to even lay a bet is surprising.
For example, Baranca detected significantly adverse betting patterns at six games at the Under-17 FIFA World Cup in Qatar last November.
One factor is the ages of those involved, who, if they are paid at all, will for the most part be on relatively modest academy salaries, making them more vulnerable to corruption in a way that better-paid adult athletes are not. Another is the huge gulfs between the best and worst teams in the 48-team tournament — there was a 16-0, an 8-1, and four 7-0s.
Together, it means that the tournament bears significant risks of corruption.
“The huge problem is the huge offer of matches, because match-fixing would not be entrenched so deeply if fewer games could be bet on,” Baranca explains. “There are many at the Under-17 World Cup — but why should someone bet on the Under-17 World Cup? They’re children who cannot even bet themselves.”
Contacted by The Athletic to ask if they were formally investigating any matches for fixing at the Under-17 World Cup, a FIFA spokesperson said: “FIFA completed integrity briefings with all participating member associations ahead of the FIFA U-17 World Cup 2025. Additionally, FIFA’s Integrity Task Force monitored the competition and no suspicious betting activities, or match manipulation threats were identified.”
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The Athletic also asked whether FIFA were aware that these matches were available on betting markets, and whether they had sold the data. FIFA did not respond specifically to that point.
In January 2026, Mexico received the most suspicious flags with seven alone across the second and third divisions — generally in cumulative goal markets, with teams appearing to deliberately concede to boost the total. The country will co-host this summer’s World Cup. Fixing was not mentioned as a risk factor of any public FIFA assessment.
Elsewhere, Baranca’s data reveals suspicion across a string of high-profile games, including matches featuring Champions League regulars, La Liga clubs, and MLS Next Pro League, right down to fixtures in the seventh tier of English football. On average, he detects almost 180 suspicious betting patterns each month.
The Athletic has chosen not to share the names of specific teams unless already part of a public investigation, so as not to block any ongoing law enforcement efforts. The vast majority of suspicious cases never turn into full-blown investigations — stymied by the lack of cross-authority collaboration, police priorities, a lack of further evidence, or, simply, that there is an innocent explanation.
“Sporting bodies are out to catch butterflies in a net,” says one integrity expert, speaking anonymously in order to share candid opinions. “If they manage at all, it’s only going to be the slow ones, not the bulk, or the most significant.”
Broadly, there are four strategies being employed by fixers — spot-fixing, vulnerable friendlies, ghost games, and technical manipulation.
Fixing an entire game is difficult — it requires multiple people to be involved in the fix, while players are often so well-paid that they have very little motive to cooperate.
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Spot fixing is one solution. For example, fixers may try and entice players to cooperate by raising the option of ‘first-half markets’ — betting only on the score at the break. In theory, this means a team don’t have to play to lose, and it can be about more than just goals. Throw-ins, corners, and yellow cards can all be targeted, with these having a further advantage, that often, only one player needs to be in on the scheme.
On other occasions, fixers might not need leverage — instead choosing to fix games that players are ambivalent about, and, as such, more likely to throw. International friendlies are particularly vulnerable — games held between two club sides outside of competition, generally in the offseason or international breaks.
By organising a match at a neutral venue abroad, the fixers are also able to exploit jurisdictional confusion. Should the responsibility for investigating stem from the nations of either competing team, or from the host country?
The Athletic has also been told of the organisers of these matches organising for local players to make up the numbers when necessary, or being given opportunities as triallists — who can then be used to manipulate the result.
This is most common in the summer. Baranca’s data for July and August, for example, identifies 41 suspicious friendlies, including matches involving a Championship club, two regular Champions League participants, and a side that has already faced punishments for fixing in the last five years.
His numbers are backed up by research from Sport Integrity Australia, which reported an increase of over 50 per cent over recent seasons in a 2021 report.
“It is understood fixers started to target games at foreign training camps during winter and summer breaks,” the body reported. “Corrupted players and officials were able to leave the country before investigators could question them.”
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Other schemes do not involve match participants at all. One integrity chief at a European football association, speaking on condition of anonymity so they could speak honestly about the issues facing the sector, warned of another phenomenon, mainly seen on the Asian market.
Ghost friendlies are games that exist only for the purposes of manipulating unwitting gamblers – no players actually play. (Raul Arboleda / AFP via Getty Images)
Ghost friendlies are matches announced for the purposes of betting, and listed on black market gambling sites — but they are games that exist only as a scam, reliant on faked live data which can be manipulated.
On another occasion, a source in law enforcement described what they called “scouting fraud” — when a “spotter”, employed by bookmakers for low-profile games to manually input match events, allowing the match to be listed on the betting market, effectively goes rogue.
They are able to wrongly input the data — the source gave the example of an Icelandic match in the March international window which was temporarily listed on betting sites as a 2-0 win, when it was actually a 3-1 win — in order that their collaborators are paid out on the wrong scoreline. The spotter would then receive a share of those profits.
Other schemes attacking betting companies’ data are even more high-tech. “We saw the interception of live satellite signals to manipulate a live stream,” says Miles. “It was quite unique. Criminals also look to identify software vulnerabilities in bookmakers’ websites. We’ve even seen bots placing bets which might appear to be random — but in a methodical pattern.”
Going through flagged matches, one theme which emerges over and over is the predominance of youth matches and lower divisions. Baranca has seen betting on Under-16 matches, while there have been documented fixes as low as the Australian fifth division — an entirely amateur league.
According to data from the Copenhagen Group, games at the fourth division or below are the second-most common level for suspicious matches, with 208 identified before late November. There were also 160 flagged youth team fixtures over the course of the entire year, more than doubling the previous year’s tally.
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These issues are inseparable from the number of markets offered. Of course, not all low-level matches are fixed, but integrity experts are in agreement that they are far more vulnerable to corruption, because its participants are not usually well-paid.
There are limited regulations on what matches can be listed by betting websites — especially on sites which have not received regulator approval. One example is the popular Russian-based platform 1xBet, which is illegal in the UK, U.S., and Canada, along with the majority of EU nations. However, it is still popular due to the range of matches it lists, and still easily accessible to bettors in those countries online.
The United Nation’s Corruption and Economic Crime Branch estimates that at least 60 per cent of sports betting takes place on unlicensed platforms.
“It’s not like you have to walk down a dark alleyway to place a bet on the illegal market,” says Affy Sheikh, former head of integrity at betting consultancy and analytics firm Starlizard. “It’s not inherently obvious — these are just websites that look enticing and allow you to open an account.”
In April alone, 1xBet listed the following matches:
A game involving an amateur Swiss side representing an Italian pizzeria
Regular matches from a Cuban street football league
Serbian Under-17 divisions
Stories of data collectors at youth academy matches, feeding live information to betting providers — which it is banned to offer odds on via the legal market — are common across Premier League academies.
Since COVID-19, analysts have also noticed a significant uptick in non-traditional sports. Several sources have pointed to esports as an emerging issue, bolstered by factors such as player anonymity and the absence of a unified governing body with the ability to monitor and investigate suspect play.
Baranca speaks about seeing his first case in the niche sport of floorball — «this is a game I had not even heard about» — while also pointing to several incipient leagues based across central and eastern Europe.
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“It’s now possible to bet on women playing table-tennis in bikinis,” he says of a competition originating from the Czech Republic, which consistently ranks near the top of integrity bodies’ high-risk nations.
“You can imagine the level of these women. It’s unbelievable. Every day is a new sport. Every day we see a new element.”
One of the most important reasons we watch sport is for the its sense of immediacy and authenticity. We place faith in the sporting contest. That is why fixing is such a betrayal: it undermines something essential about sport itself.