Betting fraud is common practice in Brazil’s football leagues

Without doubt, Brazil is one of the largest football nations. When it comes to football passion, many Germans think first and foremost about the South American country. On the other hand, Brazil unfortunately is one of the states which is well-known for its high criminality and corruption rate. These negative factors are also shown in football. Game manipulation and betting fraud are nearly the order of the day.

Obvious fouls, penalties which are difficult to be recognised as such and players who are bribed. According to a recent report of the Deutschlandfunk, football games, especially those in the lower leagues are so manipulated, that criminals making sport bets are definitely guaranteed to receive a lot of money. The judiciary is not doing enough against the intrigue. Individual perpetrators or organised groups practically have the free hand, and many players are susceptible to bribery.

One in every five cases of football rigging worldwide happens in Brazil

Football rigging scandals are regular topics in the Brazilian media. The number of coverage reports show that these types of bribes create a big problem. The actual measures remained undetected for a long time.

A recent study by the Swiss company Sportradar has verified these assumptions. With the helpf of artificial intelligence this study continuously analyses, among other things, – the worldwide market of sports betting. By means of this study 775 football games were identified as being rigged in 2022.

The sad Brazilian result from this perception: one in every five encounters with those with fraudulent intent took place in one of the country’s leagues.

Betting fraud was recorded often in the last years

There are currently ongoing investigations about several riggings in the Serie B, the model examples for betting fraud in Brazil. During the last season there were rigged penalty situations in the second division of the country. The club involved, Club Vila Nova F.C., brought up the issue itself after an attempted bribery went wrong. According to the Deutschlandfunk, the player did not take the offer of his colleagues and informed the club’s president about it.

The aim of the fraud is to create deliberate penalties in the first half time so that multiple bets can lead to a win. For the bet to be successful, penalties had to be given in three particular encounters.

The reward is 150,000 Real (when converted around 25,000 Euro). 10,000 were transferred in advance, the rest were transferred upon successful implementation. This is definitely a large amount of money – however in comparison to a possible betting win which would come up to 350,000 Euro that is an absolutely acceptable investment.

During the hearing, references to other possible riggings in the regional championships were made. It would not surprise the Brazilian courts if the penalty fraud were only the tip of the iceberg. In the past years there were several cases like the recent one.

For example, the fourth division was shaken up when the wave of rigging was revealed. Nine clubs from Rio de Janeiro were involved. The regional league of São Paulo registered similar cases. It was revealed that even in the juniors there were several cases of players being bribed. In 2023 in the second Amazonas League, they even managed to reveal an offence amongst those at the highest level. In fact, the president of a club was one of those involved in the fraud. 

How does the betting fraud work and who is behind it?

The procedure often follows the following pattern: middlemen woo players openly and offer them high amounts for their services, in the context of high amounts of money.

Finally, the footballers must provoke offences or create other situations in particular matches which can very easily work in their favour. The “client” has previously placed a bet on these situations and this bet will be definitely won. It is often the case that not only one footballer is involved but half the team or several players of the team.

Most of the time the criminals work under the guise of a player’s adviser agency. There are individual persons behind the scam or also organised gangs. Above all they focus on players who have less ambitions for a career push or on whole clubs who are in a bad financial situations.

This is why Brazil is so susceptible to betting fraud

There are three main reasons why Brazil is very susceptible to betting fraud in football:

• Above all there is the largest football market which criminals can make use of. There are many Brazilian leagues and every week there are hundreds of games, many of which are organised at Federal Level.

• Further to this in 2018 the supply of sports bets was made easier for relevant companies. Till now however there are no specific regulations. A decree was at that time presented to the president in office. Till now however nothing has happened. The market is enormous – there is a turnover of around 25 billion Euro yearly. It is not known how many of these millions are illegally generated. There are no measures available to reveal such numbers or to stop criminal manipulations.

• However, most of all the worst payments in nearly all leagues are to blame as they make bribery and betting fraud very attractive for the Brazilian football and its players. According to the Deutschfunk more than half of the registered players receive a minimum wage of around 230 Euro per month. There are even footballers in the first division who do not receive more than 1500 Euro.

Conclusion

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