The Winter Olympics for 2018 are being held in South Korea all throughout Pyeongchang. This major sporting event is a hot topic for casinos and sportsbooks in the realm of online betting. However, the presence of bets can lead to trouble. The Olympic Games have experienced event manipulation and suspicious betting in the past. For this reason, the ESSA and the International Olympic Committee are again combining forces and have established an agreement to detect and stop nefarious betting activity while the events happen.
The International Olympic Committee has regularly worked with the ESSA in the past, making for a long-standing partnership that has helped to keep the games fair. The reasoning behind the new agreement is to put significant focus on the Winter Olympics. Specifically, the team will try to keep betting practices fair through a system of intelligence gathering and networking.
Trends in betting during the Olympics are a big sign of rigged events or manipulation. The ESSA will monitor the betting patterns from players to detect the presence of anything unfair, especially through online providers. Given the scope of the Winter Olympics, the ESSA is dedicating an entire group of workers for the sole purpose of preventing manipulative practices.
The collaboration between the ESSA and the International Olympic Committee is no surprise. Throughout the years, the pair have had a common goal of removing corruption from events for good. The ESSA has proven its intentions through actions taken in 2017. During that year alone, there were over 200 cases investigated by the ESSA. Surprisingly, over 100 of the cases came in the fourth quarter of the year.
A popular option for placing bets is through an online casino. Some of the most popular gaming sites also feature sections for sports betting, but the player should always be wary. Only trusted casinos are regulated and licensed to offer betting systems. With countless events happening around the world, gaming sites constantly have new stakes.
Regulation in the online casino format translates to the need for similar enforcement during events such as the Winter Olympics. The potential for suspicious betting practices is a risk that could be disastrous for sportsbooks, considering the venues conduct millions of transactions.
South Korea will be hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics from February 8th until February 25th. There are over 90 countries in the event with a total of about 3,000 athletes who will compete. This will be the second Olympic Games in the country, and the first Winter Olympics.