Uefa’s integrity partner Sportradar consistently claims that it doesn’t sell data to unlicensed gambling operators. But its annual report states that it generates significant revenue from unlicensed gambling.
By Andy Brown, Philippe Auclair, Jack Kerr, Sam Kunti and Steve Menary
This includes live data on who will give away the next corner or yellow card – events that are easier to fix than the final score. Sportsradar’s data is used by Russian betting operators involved with military financing, as well as by numerous illegal operators, including in jurisdictions where gambling is illegal. The integrity company’s commercialisation of sports data and its use on illegal markets presents a potential nirvana for match-fixers.
If you were going to fix a football game, how would you do it? For obvious reasons, the easiest way is to pay a single player to concede a yellow card or give away a corner. Would you use a regulated operator, which has to report to regulatory authorities, or an unregulated one? The answer is an open goal.
By collecting and commercialising live data from all levels of sport, Sportradar plays a part in creating the integrity problem it alleges to police. Once match data is collected and commercialised, it is very difficult to control where it will end up.
‘Data-scouting presents a threat to the integrity of sports given it facilitates the creation of unregulated betting markets, particularly at lower levels or for non-traditional betting sports,’ reads a Sport Integrity Australia report recently released under a Freedom of Information request. ‘These unregulated operators and markets allow for almost no visibility or cooperation with sports and law enforcement agencies. The creation of betting markets, together with other factors such as vulnerable participants, then provides opportunity for those looking to exploit betting markets through corrupting sport.’
No licence, no problem
1xBet is probably the biggest bookmaker in the world. Why the caveat? Because nobody knows for certain. 1xBet operates illegally in many markets. Founded by Russians in Bryansk, the operator has been involved with organising games involving false teams and children, has taken bets on matches in Saudi Arabia where gambling is illegal and using a porn star as a promoter.
1xBet is big precisely because it is unregulated. It doesn’t have to pay tax, nor does it have to contribute to player protection measures. Or, in many cases, pay out to winners.
1xBet claimed to hold a licence issued by Curaçao eGaming, however following a restructure of licensing procedures on the Caribbean island, neither 1xBet nor Curaçao eGaming appear to feature on the island’s licence registry.
This page footer, from April, indicates that 1xBet did claim to hold a licence from Curaçao eGaming.
Today, there is no information regarding licensing on 1xBet’s internet site. When logged in, users are required to falsely claim that they live in other countries in order to download the 1xBet app.
Users downloading the 1xBet app must pretend they’re from another country in order to bypass local restrictions.
There also appear to be connections between 1xBet and Russia’s military operations. In 2022, 1xBet promised to donate 1 million US dollars to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine. The illegal, unlicensed gambling operator told us that the donation had been made to the Red Cross. Numerous Red Cross branches told us that they hadn’t received any money from 1xBet. Most had never heard of the company, and some expressed outrage.
1xBet claimed it had donated 1 million dollars to the Red Cross to help humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
That outrage is well founded. In the same year, 1xBet also promised to donate 1 percent of its revenue from Russian bets to ‘Russian heroes’ injured during the country’s war against Ukraine.
Translation of 2022 advert in which 1xBet promises to donate 1 percent of all bets made in Russia to ‘Russian heroes’.
On 10 May, Chornomorets Odesa beat Vorskla Poltava 2-1 in Odesa, within Ukraine’s disputed Crimea area. Live, in-play bets were offered by both 1xBet and Bet365, a Sportradar client, assisted by a live ‘match tracker’, which enables bettors to follow the action in real time. As can be seen in the animation below, 1xBet was very slightly ahead of the Bet365 tracker.
Chornomorets Odesa vs. Vorskla Poltava on 10 May on Bet365 and 1xBet. The Russian bookmaker was slightly ahead of the licensed British bookmaker.
We also compared Bet365’s match tracker with that of betting operator Liga Stavok which, as previously reported by Josimar, uses Sportradar’s match codes. Liga Stavok’s tracker was way behind Bet365’s. How can 1xBet be ahead of two bookmakers that use Sportradar data?
The live ‘match tracker’ is a key Sportradar feature. It is also part of its Managed Trading Services (MTS) product, which provides a complete solution for betting operators. Clients include former Everton sponsor Stake which like 1xBet, has questionable licence credentials and exited the British market after being associated with a porn actress.
At Sportradar’s 2025 investor day, the integrity giant confirmed that Stake and 188Bet – an operator based in Belize and licensed via Anjouan – are clients.
The client code
Industry insiders told us that Sportradar puts a delay on the live match tracker provided through its MTS. By doing this, it can sell at a premium the faster raw data to operators who want to create their own match tracker, which will be ahead of Sportradar’s MTS customers. In other words, it can market two products rather than one.
It is understood that Bet365 buys raw data from Sportradar, Runningball, or Genius – whichever is faster – and creates its own match tracker visualisations, which is why it is ahead of Liga Stavok. But this doesn’t explain how 1xBet is ahead of Bet365.
Over a period of years, we have asked Sportradar whether it supplies data to 1xBet. The company has consistently avoided the question. An industry insider told us they would be “absolutely astounded” if 1xBet didn’t use Sportradar’s data.
Using specialised software, we found an 1xBet internal development site that contained data from Betradar, a Sportradar subsidiary, within its source code. This included a client code. The development site appeared to be live, as it featured live, in-play data from football games and other sports taking place on the days it was accessed.
The 1xBet live match data from the 24 June friendly between IFK Värnamo and B93 Copenhagen appeared to feature data taken from Betradar – as well as a client code.
We have also seen Sportradar’s data appear on 1xBet in real time. Brazil’s Serie D is the fourth and lowest tier of the Brazilian professional football system. We found two data scouts at a May game. One was working for Sportsdata, a subsidiary of Sportradar which in April, extended its contract with the Confederation of Brazilian Football (CBF).
Sportsdata is one of just under 50 subsidiaries listed in Sportradar’s 2024 Annual Report. It is also the same company which agreed to manipulate live data during a Belgian amateur women’s football match, data which appeared on 1xBet nanoseconds later.
Low level, high stakes
It wouldn’t be the first time that Sportradar scouts have been caught at a low level game. Officials for 1962 Kirchheimer SC, an amateur club that plays in the Bayernliga Süd – the fifth tier of German football – ejected a Sportradar scout from their game, resulting in betting on in-play events being suspended. For the club’s next home game Sportradar sent two scouts, but the club was only able to find one.
Live, in-play events on an amateur game continued, and officials found them offered on betting markets. When reporters for ARD attempted to question the Swiss integrity giant about this, it closed the conversation down.
Sportradar scouts were caught collecting live, in-play data at an amateur game in the fifth tier of German football.
The self-proclaimed integrity giant has no qualms about selling its data to other Russian operators. Fonbet spent over 1 million euro with Sportradar during 2021, according to Sportclan and LegalBet.
Fonbet spent 1.02 million euro with Sportradar in 2021 (©SportClan).
Fonbet is operated by Fonkor LLC (ООО “ФОНКОР”), a company that the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) deems has a ‘murky history’. This includes connections to Pin-Up Casino, which reportedly paid money to finance Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.
On 30 March 2022, Sportradar suspended the signing of new Russian customers. But this was only after a 25 March news report unearthed that Carsten Koerl, Sportradar’s CEO, owned a 23 percent stake in OOO PMBK, the owner of Russian betting operator Liga Stavok. According to Sportradar’s 2021 Annual Report, this stake generated 2.7 million euro for the company in 2021, 2 million in 2020 and 3.2 million in 2019.
As previously reported by Josimar, Sportradar’s data is also being used by Russian gambling operators to offer live betting on Ukrainian football, in violation of contracts held by the Ukrainian football association (UAF). We asked Sportradar why it still has offices in Russia.
McDonalds and chicken blood
It’s not just Russia. Anjouan is a small volcanic rock nestled within the Comoros archipelago, between Mozambique and Madagascar, off the African coast. It has a total population of around 360,000. Yet it licenses 825 companies which operate almost 1,500 gambling websites.
We emailed the Union of the Comoros government to ask how this is possible. It didn’t respond. Perhaps that’s because one of the addresses given for Anjouan Licensing Services Inc. is in Costa Rica.
One of the addresses given for Anjouan Licensing Services, the ‘sole authorised administrator’ for the Anjouan Gaming Board, is in Costa Rica.
BJ88 Holdings Limited, which operates a number of sports betting websites including the sponsor of AFC Bournemouth and Bologna FC, is one of the companies licensed by the Anjouan Gaming Board. It also claims to be the main sponsor of digital perimeter boards at Real Madrid. There is no record of this company on any corporate registry, and its address features both Hamchako, a ramshackle village on Anjouan and Mutsamudu, the major city on the other side of the island.
Address details for BJ88 Holdings Limited.
The purpose of the partnerships with Bournemouth and Bologna is to attract sports bettors. So how does accurate, up to date, information on live football games get to a small volcanic rock in the Indian Ocean?
Specialised software utilised by Josimar suggests that BJ88 is built using Sportradar data. We asked Sportradar and BJ88 if they have a client/customer relationship.
As previously reported by Josimar, BJ88 targets Vietnam, where offering online sports betting is a criminal offence. It also offers the option to bet on live cockfights, a bloodsport listed as its ‘most popular’ form of bet when logged in to the site. Its owner also operates a number of cricket betting sites targeted at India, where betting is illegal in most states.
BJ88 Holdings Limited operates a number of websites targeted at jurisdictions where gambling is illegal, as well as Citinow, which allows users to place bets on horses to lose.
It also operates Citinow, which links to Citibet – the scourge of the Asian Racing Federation (ARF). Citibet is controversial not only because it is unlicensed and illegal, but also because it allows punters to bet on horses to lose, a serious integrity risk.
‘Citibet has been the primary platform for illegal betting on horse racing in Asia for around 20 years’, warns the ARF. ‘[It] has liquidity comparable to the biggest legal racing tote operators in the world – all completely untaxed, with zero know-your-customer or money-laundering controls. Citibet is now franchised across literally thousands of third-party illegal betting websites via a software “plug-in”, which makes Citibet betting markets and pirated live streams on global horse racing available to any illegal bookmaker. “Franchisees” can install this software by copy-and-pasting a few lines of code in the back-end of their website, or rely on one of the many gambling software providers which service unregulated betting operators to do it for them. This is the ‘McDonaldisation’ of online illegal betting.’
The Running Man
Another operator that BJ88 offers the option to bet with is SBO. The company remains on the shirts of Premier League club Fulham, which agreed a club record deal with SBO in 2023. However the Asian betting operator was only able to advertise in Great Britain due to a white label agreement between Celton Manx and TGP Europe.
Celton Manx surrendered its Isle of Man licence in May this year and in July, was fined 3.94 million pounds by the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission for a number of serious regulatory failures. A few days after Celton Manx surrendered its licence, TGP Europe exited the British market following regulatory action by the Gambling Commission. This means that a number of British football clubs who are sponsored by gambling operators via agreements with TGP Europe are promoting unlicensed gambling.
It is still possible to bet with SBO either directly, or via a number of other operators, such as BJ88. Specialised software utilised by Josimar suggests that in June, over 30 SBO websites were built using data from Sportradar. We asked Sportradar and SBO if they have a client/customer relationship.
SBO claims it is owned by Entrope S.R.L, a company registered in Costa Rica. Entrope S.R.L is licensed via Tobique, a tiny 27 square kilometres First Nation enclave in Canada that is home to under 2,000 people, yet licenses 78 gambling companies that operate over 100 online gambling websites.
This is because it doesn’t run the licensing regime at all. It is managed by the Differentia Licensing Advisory (DLA) Group, as the ‘Apply’ link from the Tobique Gaming Commission website demonstrates. DLA was founded by Mark Quirk, a director of Amino Associates, which is based at an address in Wickford, Essex. This is also the registered address for 28 companies linked to 1,200 pornographic websites that were among the biggest customers of Wirecard, which collapsed in 2020 following allegations of fraud, reported The Times.
Where are DLA based? The Isle of Man, where Celton Manx were based. We asked DLA to verify the ultimate owners of Entrope S.R.L and their location. They didn’t respond.
SBO is owned by a company registered in Costa Rica, yet licensed via a Canadian First Nation tribe.
An automated email reply from SBO was very interesting indeed. It indicated that the betting site is owned by Runningman Corporation, based in Manilla, The Philippines. SBO was previously licensed there via VIP Global Solutions, which had an agreement with Celton Manx, until The Philippines decided to close its offshore gambling licensing regime from 15 December last year.
A 27 June email to SBOBet indicated that although it is registered to a company domiciled in Costa Rica, it is actually owned by Runningman Corporation, based in The Philippines.
The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) database indicates that Runningman Corporation still owns the trademarks to the SBO brand. The name of the company, which provides ‘technical, back-end support and customer services’, couldn’t be more apt. The Running Man is a 1987 dystopian film involving a TV show where convicted criminals are pardoned if they escape a maze containing professional killers. Much like SBO’s attempts to escape regulation.
The SBO trademarks are owned by Runningman Corporation, based in The Philippines.
So does anybody actually know who controls SBO? Given the opaqueness outlined above, can Sportradar be confident its betting data isn’t being utilised by a criminal organisation?
The chicken or the egg?
‘Sports fans today are connected to their favorite teams at all times,’ reads Sportradar’s 2021 share prospectus. ‘They demand multi-platform experiences, personalization, and deeper interaction than ever before […] In response to growing demand from sports bettors, new use cases in sports media such as player tracking, data overlay features, visualizations and simulated reality are rapidly gaining traction […] Computer vision is radically transforming the volume and speed of data points available, enabling new sports betting use cases like player acceleration and intent-driven insights such as type of shot.’
Yet in that same prospectus, Sportradar’s CEO Carsten Koerl tells potential investors: ‘We have a unique opportunity ahead of us to re-define what it means to be a sports fan. While Sportradar was initially built in a world where betting operators were simply looking for accurate data, comparison and match schedules on their sites, we have taught them to expect so much more.’
This raises a difficult question. Have sports betting fans actually demanded these new features, or has Sportradar taught its betting operator customers to expect them?
The share prospectus also reveals that in 2021, Sportradar worked with 8,300 data reporters supplying live, in-play data from over 600,000 events across 37 sports. It said it had 1,715 customers in 123 countries, and software utilised by Josimar suggests that over 13,000 betting sites are built using data from Sportradar. Are all of these operators, sites, and countries adequately regulated?
Sportradar consistently claims that it doesn’t sell data to unlicensed gambling operators. But its Annual Report states that it does generate significant revenue from unlicensed gambling.
“A significant amount of our revenue is indirectly derived from jurisdictions where we or our clients are not required to hold a license or limited regulatory framework exists and the legality of sports betting varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction and is subject to uncertainties,” it reads. “There is a risk that regulators or prosecutors in jurisdictions where we provide online gambling and/or betting services to our customers without a local license or pursuant to a multi-jurisdictional license may take legal action against our operations, and despite our good faith efforts to comply with all local requirements, any defense we may raise may not be successful. These actions may include criminal sanctions and penalties, as well as civil and administrative enforcement actions, fines, funds and asset seizures.”
It also appears that Sportradar sells Single Match Bookings (SMBs) to gambling operators on a one-off basis. The ability to buy live, in-play data for a single game would be very useful to an illegal operator wanting to fix an event within a game, such as a card or corner. Nobody knows who these customers are.
‘These matches are typically premium events with a separate pricing and revenue is recognized when the data for each match is delivered,’ read a reply to clarifications sought by the SEC about Sportradar’s acquisition of Atrium Sports. ‘Single match bookings (SMBs) are distinct services sold at their individual stand-alone prices. The SMB fee is charged at a higher price per booking than the relative price per booking within the sport data packages. The price for SMBs for customers with a sport data package is consistent with pricing included in contracts for SMB only (e.g. with contracts with customers who do not have a sport data package).’
For some clients, Sportradar takes a share of revenue generated by live, in-play betting. Nowhere in its SEC filings does Sportradar reveal who these special clients are.
‘Certain sport betting contracts with customers incorporate a revenue share scheme in which Sportradar receives a share of revenue based on the gaming revenue generated from the betting activity on the match,’ reads its 2023 Annual Report. ‘The revenue share is generated from live betting events and recognized at the point in time of the actual customer sale performance. Sportradar’s fee on the revenue share is recognized at the point of time the customer has itself generated gaming revenue from an individual bet, which is the difference between the bet and payout.’
This raises the possibility that Sportradar could be receiving a share of revenue from bets on a fixed event within a game to which it has supplied the data enabling that fix. As Josimar previously reported, Sportradar was selling data on penalties and cards in Brazil’s Serie A, B, and C to the gambling industry – the same in-play events that Brazilian prosecutors had identified as fixed. Not a good look for the Confederation of Brazilian Football’s (CBF) integrity partner.
See no evil
We asked Sportradar a series of questions about all of the above, including its client relationships and the activities of its subsidiaries. ‘We ask that you reproduce our statement in its entirety,’ it insisted. ‘It should not be edited or abridged and must be used completely, so that context is not lost.’
However, Sportradar didn’t answer all of Josimar’s questions, so it is only fair that we publish them in their entirety, so that context is not lost. We asked:
Is 1xBet a Sportradar client?
Is BJ88 Holdings Limited a Sportradar client?
Is SBOBet a Sportradar client?
Is 12Bet a Sportradar client?
Is PinUp Casino a Sportradar client?
Is Leon (the Russian betting site) a Sportradar client?
Is FonBet (the Russian betting site) a Sportradar client?
Does Sportradar offer Single Match Bookings for live betting data?
Does Sportradar sell Single Match Bookings to gambling operators that are not Sportradar clients?
What is the function of Sportradar’s subsidiary, DataCentric Corporation, in The Philippines?
Why does Sportradar’s Philippines operation, DataCentric Corporation, employ more people than its other offices?
Why is Datacentric Corporation recruiting people to log US basketball stats?
Why does Sportradar maintain offices in Moscow?
Its reply was: ‘Sportradar is committed to taking all reasonable steps to ensure its clients hold licenses and permits. Sportradar has a number of safeguards in place which include conducting client due diligence and imposing contractual requirements pertaining to licensing. Sportradar continuously audits sportsbooks for IP infringement and exercises consistent due diligence by scanning the internet to detect breaches and unauthorized usage of our data. As soon as a potential breach is detected, action is immediately taken. Furthermore, Sportradar does not manage offerings on a bookmaker’s behalf. Betting operator clients decide what content to take from Sportradar subject to their license regulations and applicable laws.
‘With reference to Russia, Sportradar announced its suspension of all new investments in Russia, including signing new clients and divestment of business interests, immediately following the outbreak of war with Ukraine.
‘Datacentric ‘is a subsidiary entity of Sportradar, as is apparent from its Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing. Sportradar is Datacentric’s only client and provides support services, including IT, Backoffice and data logging for several sports to power media and performance-related products.’
Client confidentiality is understandable. But if all of Sportradar’s clients are licensed and regulated, wouldn’t both parties be proud to confirm their relationship? An organisation that can’t answer questions about its own integrity cannot be an integrity partner. Sport would do well to remember that.
*We did not receive a response from BJ88, SBOBet, 1xBet, and Fonbet to questions about whether they use Sportradar data. Our questions to Real Madrid about BJ88’s claimed relationship with the Spanish club also fell on deaf ears.
This article was developed with the support of Journalismfund Europe.
