IBIA Partners with Colombia on Gaming Integrity
Colombia’s gaming overseer, Fecoljuegos, has signed an agreement with the International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA) to further its work in betting integrity within the LATAM country. This is an important step for the organization, which has been steadily working towards improving Colombia’s legal, regulated gaming infrastructure with key moves in the last year.
Colombian regulator Fecoljuegos has signed an agreement with IBIA to further sports match integrity.
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What does IBIA’s Memorandum mean for Colombian gaming?
Fecoljuegos, otherwise known as the Colombian Federation of Entrepreneurs of Games of Luck and Chance, has specifically signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with IBIA. This is a written agreement that both organizations will work together to reduce cases of fraud within the sports-betting industry. This includes match fixing.
In a recent press release, IBIA’s CEO Khalid Ali explained why this is a big step for gaming in Latin America overall. He said:
“We are happy to collaborate with Fecoljuegos on common projects in the fight against match-fixing. The establishment of the Colombian National Committee for the prevention of manipulation of sports competitions is the first of its kind in the Latin American region. Fecoljuegos played an important role in its launch and we fully support the call for integrity provisions to be included in the gambling legislation.”
Fecoljuegos, the Colombian gaming regulator, seemed similarly enthusiastic about the collaboration with IBIA as it represents a chance for support within Colombian from gaming integrity experts with global experience. Fecoljuegos’ president Evert Montero Cárdenas shared:
“With great expectation we receive this memorandum which establishes an agreement of wills. We believe that this is an important step to shield the activity from irregular practices that have affected it for years. Partnering with IBIA is surely something that guarantees higher standards of integrity, which represents an advantage for the legal industry in the country.”
A Look at Gaming Integrity in Colombia
The agreement with IBIA is another step in a long list of actions Colombia’s gaming authorities have undertaken in order to work towards regulated and safe legal gaming in the country. Last year, a number of illegally operating slot machines were confiscated.
Towards the end of 2021, the Fecoljuegos took a further step by announcing it would examine the country’s slot machine standards. They planned to work together with Coljuegos to make sure that slots were up to international standards.
Colombia’s gaming industry seems to have a vested interest in working to improve its legal gaming infrastructure in line with worldwide gaming. Similarly, IBIA has a deep interest in working more closely with gaming regulators in Latin America.
In 2021, IBIA released an intriguing report which stated that LATAM showed great potential for growth in the sports betting market. On the other side of that coin is the possibility for corruption, which the group is of course working to manage. In a press release about the report’s translation to English, IBIA stated:
“The burgeoning Latin American sports betting market is an increasingly important focus for IBIA members’ business operations. 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 four different sports. 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.”
IBIA has already done some work in identifying potential exploitations of the betting market in LATAM. In 2021, they reported that nine suspicious matches were flagged in Colombia in the last four years, mostly in the field of tennis though one football match was also identified.
