Public Gaming Magazine January/February 2016

January/February 2016 // PUBLIC GAMING INTERNATIONAL //

tive of monitoring sports betting. We

are very active in the development and

implementation of the Global Lottery

Monitoring System for Sports Betting

(GLMS), which is an organization of

27 Lottery operators from all across the

world which offer sports betting.

Many European lotteries are very

much involved with amateur sports.

In many jurisdictions, a large portion

of the net funds generated by the state

Lottery is allocated to the support of

amateur sports. And many of those

same Lotteries offer betting on a wide

variety of sports, including amateur

and professional sport contests. So

it is important that the community

of government-lottery operators take

the lead to ensure that sports betting

is conducted with integrity, and that

the economic activity of sports betting

does not interfere with the integrity

of the sport contests themselves. The

mission-critical objective is to prevent

match-fixing or other manipulations of

the outcome of sporting contests.

The goal is to protect the activity of sports

from being corrupted. That would be for

the benefit of sports themselves and the

players and the general public who en-

joys its role as spectator and supporter of

sports. Another goal would be to mini-

mize the financial risks posed to the busi-

ness of operating sports betting, right?

T. Pujol:

Of course, the two are re-

lated. Protecting the integrity of the

games is a prerequisite to protecting

the integrity of a business based on the

betting on those games. To that end,

we are fully involved with the French

Football League, French Rugby Fed-

eration, French Basketball Federation,

and the French Handball Federation.

We go to the clubs to promote an un-

derstanding of the risks associated with

the fact that millions of people are bet-

ting on the outcomes of the games. To

your point, though, risk management

and security is crucial to the financial

aspect of the business of operating

sports betting.

To be effective, wouldn’t you need to have

all operators and all jurisdictions across

the world working together? And how do

you even begin to control illegality in the

unregulated sporting environment? After

all, billions are gambled on sports betting

in an environment that isn’t even regu-

lated.

T. Pujol:

Before all, I would like

to say that nowadays in 2015 almost

all the countries in the world have a

sports betting regulation. That means

that there are no more regulated mar-

kets but legal and illegal operators (a

legal operator is an operator who has

an explicit authorization in the juris-

diction of the consumer). The solu-

tions will not be forthcoming quickly

or easily. The global initiatives to pre-

vent match-fixing and manipulation in

sports-betting will be a long marathon.

Interpol estimated that illegal betting

in 2012 was around $500 billion. It is

hard to know the accuracy of that fig-

ure for sure. But it does give us a good

picture of the magnitude of the prob-

lem. And we know that it is increas-

ing. This market is everywhere, even in

countries where sports betting is pro-

hibited, like most states in the United

States.

It is true that cooperation between

jurisdictions all across the world is a

vital step towards controlling the risk

of corruption in sports and sports

betting. It is extremely difficult for

the individual jurisdiction, or the

operators within the jurisdiction, to

address these issues without the sup-

port and cooperation of others around

the world. Everyone understands that

the efforts to protect the integrity of

THE WORLD LOTTERY

ASSOCIATION (WLA) SECURITY

CONTROL STANDARD

The security of a lottery plays a critical

role in maintaining the confidence and

trust of the public in its lottery games.

It is vital, therefore, that a lottery organi-

zation develops and maintains a visible

and documented security environment

in order to achieve and sustain public

confidence in its operations.

The WLA Security Control Standard

(SCS) is the lottery sector’s only in-

ternationally

recognized

security

standard. The WLA SCS couples a

comprehensive information security

management baseline incorporating

ISO/IEC 27001:2005, a leading interna-

tional standard for information security

management, with additional lottery-

specific security controls representing

current best practice. The WLA SCS

is designed to assist the lottery sector

around the globe in obtaining a level of

security controls in line with generally

accepted best practices, to enable an

increased reliance on the integrity of

lottery operations. The WLA SCS spec-

ifies the required practices for an effec-

tive security management structure by

which a lottery may maintain the integ-

rity, availability, and confidentiality of

information vital to its secure operation.