ZURICH: FIFA, world football’s governing body conducted a study with American data analytics giant, Sportradar and its integrity partners to confirm that the total global betting revenue gained from the World Cup 2018 in Russia was an estimated €136 billion ($160 billion) and no match manipulation behaviour was detected.
The average match of the World Cup had an estimated global betting turnover of €2.1 billion ($2.39 billion) with the final, between Croatia and France, generating an estimated €7.2 billion ($8.2 billion) in betting turnover worldwide.
Croatia was the team from which gamblers benefited the most as it had the highest average betting turnover per match with opening odds of around 34.0 and also due to being the underdog in their victories against Argentina and England.
Sportradar’s Fraud Detection System monitored over 550 betting operators worldwide, generating some alerts during the competition, which are easily explained by markets adjusting the opening odds after the first match or two were played. Following an in-depth, qualitative analysis of the overall volume and movement odds within the betting market, no matches at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia were found to be suspicious of match manipulation or betting fraud.
