AbstractMatch fixing is a growing threat to the integrity of sport, facilitated by new online in-play betting markets sufficiently liquid to allow substantial profits to be made from manipulating an event. Screens to detect a fix employ in-play forecasting models whose predictions are compared in real-time with observed betting odds on websites around the world. Suspicions arise where model odds and market odds diverge. We provide real examples of monitoring for football and tennis matches and describe how suspicious matches are investigated by analysts before a final assessment of how likely it was that a fix took place is made. Results from monitoring driven by this application of forensic statistics have been accepted as primary evidence at cases in the Court of Arbitration for Sport, leading more sports outside football and tennis to adopt this approach to detecting and preventing manipulation.
A database of handwriting samples for applications in forensic statistics
