Fight Against Illegal Betting

Dublin, June 4, 2014: The International Rugby Board has reaffirmed its commitment to the fight against illegal betting, match-fixing and corruption in sport by becoming the first Summer International Federation to sign up to the International Olympic Committee’s Integrity Betting Intelligence System (IBIS).

As an intelligence-sharing digital platform, IBIS will enable the IRB and its Unions to access an extensive network of monitoring and data-sharing across sports, event owners and the major sports betting entities.

The objectives of IBIS are:

• Safeguard sports from the threat connected to illegal sports betting
• To support international federations and multisport event organisers with intelligence and information exchange
• To create a framework for transparency, confidentiality and trust across all users

The IRB signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the IOC and implementation of the system has already taken place during some of the recently concluded HSBC Sevens World Series events. All matches were declared clear and incident free from an integrity perspective.

IRB Chairman Bernard Lapasset said: “Match fixing and corruption is one of the biggest threats to all sports and while there is no history of prevalence in Rugby, it is important that we continue to drive forward measures that educate and safeguard the Rugby community from such threats.”

“As custodians of the Game, it is the responsibility of the IRB and its Member Unions to protect and promote the integrity of our sport through the delivery of robust regulations, effective monitoring and strong education.”

IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell said: “The IOC applauds the IRB for becoming the first Olympic Summer IF having signed up to the IOC’s initiative for clean competitions – the ‘Integrity Betting Intelligence System’. IBIS collates alerts and information on manipulation through betting on sports and was successfully in operation for the first time during the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi with all Olympic Winter IFs taking part in the project.”

“The Memorandum of Understanding allows IBIS to cover not only the Rugby events during the next Olympic Summer Games but also IRB’s major non-Olympic competitions. The agreement between the IOC and the IRB marks the first step in integrating all Olympic Summer IFs in the run-up to the Olympic Games 2016 in Rio.”

The announcement furthers Rugby’s tough stance on illegal betting, following the launch of its multi-lingual Keep Rugby Onside educational outreach programme (www.irbintegrity.com) and enhanced betting regulations for the global Rugby community. —- IRB