UK: Match-fixing more complex as prediction markets grow

On July 21, senior officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport spoke to the House of Lords International Agreements Committee about changing patterns in match‑fixing and how an international treaty would apply to modern betting products.

Emma Floyd, director of sports and gambling at DCMS, and deputy director Simon Mason gave evidence as the UK moves to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, known as the Macolin Convention. The UK signed the treaty in 2018 and presented it to Parliament on June 4, 2026; the parliamentary scrutiny period runs until October 12.

Floyd reported that referrals to the Gambling Commission’s Sports Betting Intelligence Unit rose 28% between 2024 and 2025. Football and tennis accounted for much of the increase, driven by their global reach and high betting volumes. She said manipulative activity is increasingly appearing in lower tiers of sport.

Officials described modern match‑fixing operations as spanning multiple countries, with athletes, intermediaries, betting platforms, event venues and funding sources often located in different jurisdictions. That international structure complicates investigations and prosecutions, they said. Intelligence sharing and prevention work have improved, but bringing ringleaders to justice remains a key enforcement challenge.

Committee members raised the growth of prediction markets and platforms that do not route activity through conventional gambling operators. On the treaty’s scope, Floyd told peers: “Whoever wrote this was very smart about making it technology neutral, so however people go about placing the bets, whether that’s in the more modern prediction products, they’re all caught by it.”

The Gambling Commission has taken the view that commercial prediction markets operating in the UK would meet the legal test for gambling and require a licence. Some analysts forecast the prediction market sector could process more than $1 trillion in trading volume in 2026.

On enforcement against unlicensed operators, officials argued that blocking websites alone is not enough. Authorities must also disrupt operators’ ability to find customers, advertise and receive payments. The commission’s enforcement tools include cease‑and‑desist notices, disruption notices and referrals of offending URLs to search engines.

Mason said DCMS completed a compliance assessment and concluded the UK’s existing legal and regulatory framework meets the convention. He indicated that sports bodies and operators should not expect new legal obligations as a result of ratification.

Floyd gave reasons for the eight‑year gap between signing and moving to ratify, citing the pandemic, the UK’s departure from the EU and a legal dispute over licensing approaches that was resolved by a European court ruling on national laws. The Gambling Commission has received £26 million from the Treasury over three years to combat illegal gambling, and operator licence fees are due to rise by 25% in October.

The committee expects to publish its report in the autumn. Of 43 signatories to the convention, 17 have ratified it so far; officials noted signatures from countries outside Europe among the signatories.