The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA), All-In Diversity Project (AIDP), Entain, Flutter, and Stats Perform launched a ground-breaking study on women’s sports and women in sports betting, “Breaking Barriers: Assessing Women’s Sports, Betting, and Integrity Challenges.”
The study, conducted by the German Sport University Cologne, and launched at IGaming Business Live! in Amsterdam, analyses the economic development of five women’s sports: soccer, tennis, basketball, cricket, and volleyball. For the very first time it analyses the size and characteristics of the women’s sports betting market and examines the potential vulnerability of women’s sports to match-fixing.
The study confirms that the dramatic increase in women’s sports has been accompanied by a similar growth in betting on women’s sports. Soccer is leading the way in terms of the number of people betting and placing bets on women’s sport, with an annual market growth rate of approximately 20% since 2020. This is followed by tennis, basketball, cricket, with growth rates of over 10% during the period 2017-2022.
Whilst corruption exists in women’s sport, the study found that it is significantly lower than in men’s sports. However, the experience of men’s sports has shown that sports betting can be the subject of criminals who defraud regulated operators by manipulating matches and exploiting vulnerabilities of sports and athletes.
