The fact that Kike Salas received seven yellow cards in the last nine league games (of which he also missed one), just after his club, Sevilla FC, mathematically guaranteed permanence, is an anomaly. . In the previous season he had four warnings in 13 games and in the previous season, two in ten. And suddenly, that Sevilla player from birth (his uncle also played for the Nervionense team), 22 years old and starting center back at the end of the season, came out almost on a card per game. In addition, the seven cards of 23/24 were seen in the final stretch of the games.
It is the type of “coincidences” that set off alarms in offices where the transfer of numbers and odds that are sports betting is observed with a magnifying glass. Anomalous events or behaviors that deviate from usual patterns, such as a very high number of bets in the minutes before a sports match or during its development, or in a very short time, although in the latter case it is another type of fraud that takes advantage of small margins in update times. The end of the season is a more favorable time for fixing in football, because there are many clubs that no longer play at all.
Then, the Big Data systems of betting houses fed with millions of betting data sound the alarm. “Everything is monitored. All. The sector provides the Government with information by type of people, game, where the money comes from, how much they bet, where it goes… It is absolutely monitored,” says Jorge Hinojosa, general director of JDigitalan association that brings together the main gaming operators in Spain.
The General Inspection Subdirectorate of the General Directorate of Gambling Regulation -DGOJ- is in charge of monitoring the movements of the players and all the bets that are made online. He is the one who receives the suspicions, through the alert in SIGMA (its investigation service), in which all operators compulsorily participate.
“We are the facilitator of suspicions because we are the first interested in ensuring that this does not happen. An alert goes off, but suspicions are drawn from them, not conclusions. We communicated it to the Police.” The surprise, says Hinojosa, is that here he has jumped with a player and a First Division club. “This usually occurs in more vulnerable populations, by age and category.”
Possible crime of fraud and disciplinary sanctions
This makes Kike Salas an anomaly within another, says Hinojosa. In 2023, the last year with closed figures, online betting houses reported eleven cases of suspicion to the Police, four in football and seven in tennis, a sport that concentrates the majority of complaints. Team sports, by their very nature, make fixing difficult by requiring the participation of many actors for almost everything (result, goals, corner kicks). This is not the case with cards. In the case of the yellow team, a protest or a minor foul without the option of playing the ball may be enough.
In the case of Kike Salas, a court in Morón de la Frontera (Seville) investigates if he and two friends arranged for the latter to pocket around 10,000 euros in fraudulent bets in one month, previously agreeing that the player would force the cards. The judicial investigations began last December at the request of the Prosecutor’s Office.
The investigation is far from over, but Kike Salas, who a month ago renewed his contract until 2029, could be accused of a crime of fraud, punishable by between six months and three years in prison. In addition, the League foresees fines of 1,200 to 100,000 euros.
On the other hand, the disciplinary code of the Spanish Federation states that the participation of footballers, coaches or managers in betting are very serious infractions that imply a penalty of up to 30,051 euros and the deprivation of the federative license for a period of two to five years. in addition to possible consequences for the clubs. The Gambling Law (2011) prohibits athletes, coaches or other direct participants in the sporting event or activity from placing bets. But in this case it is not suspected that Kike Salas bet on himself.
At an international level, the case of Lucas Paquetá has many similarities with the suspicions surrounding Kike Salas. The sought-after West Ham midfielder, 27 and a Brazil international, is accused of forcing yellow cards in four games so that his friends could earn around £100,000. He faces a possible sanction of ten years of disqualification that would end his sporting career.
In Spain, the most significant intervention in recent years is the so-called Oikos operation, in May 2019, against the alleged plot led by former players Raúl Bravo and Carlos Aranda, with twelve investigated who were accused of adulterating First Division matches. Second and Third Division. It came to nothing: the case was dismissed in March 2024 by a court in Huesca, which considered that there was insufficient evidence of fraud.
In 2022, another plot suspected of altering results of First and Second RFEF matches (former Second Division B and Third Division), the Andorran League and the Gibraltar League was detected. The operation had a second phase in January 2023. In total, 30 people were arrested accused of altering the results of 30 matches from April to June 2022. Those involved, enrolled in different clubs, were friends from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and they scandalously lowered their arms in the matches to reach the predetermined result.
A business of 500 million a year
“There is no integrity problem with sport in Spain, the data is the lowest in Europe. If this happened every week, no one would believe in football, but that doesn’t happen,” insists Jorge Hinojosa, who maintains that there are factors here that enhance the perception: “It is a very visible problem when it comes to football and, especially, in such a high category.”
IBIA (International Betting Integrity Association, for its acronym in English) did not receive any alert from Spain in the last quarter. This mechanism receives alerts about the integrity of bets made in Spain even if the event occurs on the other side of the world. Of the total of 113 alerts launched in Europe in 2023, eleven came from Spain.
Football also tries to tackle fraud from the grassroots. The LFP has training courses to expose the risks of match-fixing. There is also a Commission made up of the Government (through the DGOJ and the Higher Sports Council), the National Police, the League, the Football Federation, the Tennis Federation, the Football Players Association and four gaming operators.
The online gaming market, in general, and the sports betting market, in particular, have grown exponentially in recent years, thanks to the almost unlimited panoply of events to bet on, immediacy, very aggressive marketing and ease of access through applications. According to the latest report of the DGOJIn Spain, 11,949 million euros were put into play in sports betting in 2023, including online and in-person gaming.
Online betting houses invoiced 491.8 million euros, close to 40% of the total turnover of the online gaming sector, the result of subtracting the income from the players’ earnings. They were almost 136 million euros in the third quarter of 2024 alone, 19.76% more than in the same quarter as the previous year, according to the latest quarterly report from the General Directorate for the Regulation of Gambling.
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