Sportradar, the darling of the sports integrity industry, has been been hit hard by two investigation reports on their alleged links to criminal bookmakers and a superb documentary on organized crime in international cricket.

What a day this has been! The journalistic equivalent of you-wait-for-hours and then-5 buses-all-come-along-at-once. There are at least five major stories that have broken today. For now, here are some points on two of those stories – more later on the other scandals.

The Dark Secret at the Heart of the Sportradar Controversy

This is a MASSIVE story. The alleged collusion of the multi-billion-dollar company Sportradar with criminals in the illegal bookmaker world. The company is the darling of the investment community, the unknowing ‘experts’ of the sports integrity community and the provider of ‘integrity service’ for organizations like the ATP, NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLB, MLS, PGA TOUR, UEFA, FIFA, CONMEBOL, AFC, and the Bundesliga.

Not any more it ain’t…

This week, two short-selling, investment research companies took a look at Sportradar’s business practices. Sportradar’s stock valuation fell like a stone: 28% in 48 hours which is approximately $500 million. The stock is starting to recover now (Friday, April 24) and I am reading very, very carefully the reports by these short selling companies, speaking to Sportradar insiders and outsiders – will write more about the issue next week.

A few points:

First, the obvious – there are lots of genuinely good people inside Sportradar.

Two, the people writing the reports are short sellers. In other words, they profit from the fall in value of Sportradar’s stocks that their reports have brought about – that is an acknowledged, walking/talking conflict of interest.

Three, however, lots of what they write seems accurate. Sportradar has always seemed to me lots of smoke and mirrors. In my opinion by selling sports leagues the image that they could always spot corruption through monitoring of the betting data, Sportradar has made a comfy situation for lots of people who should not be in business bed together: sports leagues and bookmakers.

It gets worse in that Sportsradar is itself in part owned by Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association* – so you have a circuit of conflicts: the leagues provide the data to Sportradar which sells it to the bookmakers who sponsor the leagues.

Sportradar’s Carsten Koerl itself, responded to the reports with an open letter to the “global sports community”:

“There are numerous allegations in these reports that are either entirely false, poorly researched, deliberately taken out of context or, at best, repackaging the same tired stories we have heard for years.  Then there are the specific claims regarding my supposed ties with Russian oligarchs. I believe these were thrown in to promote controversy and take advantage of the current news cycle.”

The Secret

“[Sportradar] SRAD’s CEO likes to call his company the FBI of gambling. The FBI does not offer to introduce informants to human traffickers at trade shows.”
Muddywaters Research Company, April 22, 2026

The essential accusation made by the short sellers, is that Sportradar served both the legal and illegal side of the sports gambling market. As the MuddyWaters researchers, after allegedly being introduced by Sportradar executives to illegal Asian bookmakers, describe it, “Putting the BET into Aiding and Abetting.”

This is a massive scandal but ummm… almost everybody does that in the gambling market.

The line between the legal and illegal market is wafer-thin in the betting market.

It is all a little like the environmental charity world: Greenpeace vs. Sea Shepherd – all the environmentalists know each other, they love and hate each other depending on the moment, they date the same people, they all eat at the same vegan restaurant and many of the executives work at one company and then switch to another.

At the International Casino Exhibition(ICE) which is the big event for sports bookmakers around the world. All the sports gambling come to it both legal and illegal markets.

Suicide, Public Health and Legal Sports Gambling

Today, I am at the Northeastern University Public Health Advocacy Institute conference about the public health issues around online gambling. There are lots of impassioned speeches about the risks of the gamblification of our sports, communities, and countries. There are people who have lost their family through suicide to online sports gambling addiction. But in the discussion there are no appeals against the ‘illegal market’. In the discussion about the public health effects of sports gambling there is no difference around the legal and illegal market.

The Massachusetts State Senator John Keenan spoke about the similarities of the sports gambling industry between the Purdue created Opioid epidemic that caused millions of deaths in the United States. He said, “The sports gambling companies [have been] using the same playbook [as Purdue], using the same tools, refusing responsibilities in the same way, we have to hold them accountable.”

More analysis of the Sportradar situation to come as soon as possible.

PS. One story to emerge from the conference – the State of New Jersey is moving towards banning all micro bets on US sports.

* My apologies in an earlier draft of this article, I wrote that the sports league with equity stakes in Sportradar was the National Football League (NFL). This was an error – please accept my apologies for this slip-up.

Indian Organized Crime in Canadian Sport

Last week, my former colleagues at the fifth estate – Canada’s equivalent of 60 Minutes/Panorama did an EXCELLENT investigation in the alleged links between the Lawrence Bishnoi organized crime group and international cricket, specifically, the Canadian Cricket Association and their World Cup team that was linked to spot fixing, bribery and corruption.

I will write more about their work in another post but for now, a few points. It is good to see the fifth estate – finally – return to their glory days. All programs go through high points and low points. For years, the fifth estate was a dirge of historical victim-of-the-week stories: lots of worthy people speaking about issues that happened decades ago, instead of holding current politicians or officials to account.

The fifth estate celebrated breaking this mold by focusing on South Asian organized crime in Canada.

It is about bloody time!

It is genuinely difficult to state the sway that Indian/Pakistani/Sri Lanka goondas have held over their Canadian immigrant counterparts. The range of high-level drug trafficking, thuggery, extortion, political assassination attempts, killings, and the worst terrorist attack in the western world until 9/11 all held sway in Canada’s South Asian communities. But every time journalists or police officials would try to bring attention to these issues we had to go through the ‘systemic racism’ argument that essentially made more victims and stopped any accountability to the bullies within the community.

This nonsense seems to be stopping and the result is exceptional journalism like Cricket Corruption – watch here:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/cricket-canada-allegations-fifth-estate-9.7167081

Stay tuned – a lot of stories have emerged in the last 24-hours…