ESSA is a non profit organisation, members of which operate through retail, on-line and telephones channels, all of which have KYC, regulatory and anti money-laundering requirements, to protect betting and sports integrity.
Quite recently the betting industry integrity ESSA has expanded its reach and entered the Russian market, by getting into a partnership with Russian Fonbet.
Fonbet, which is a company that runs both Russian online services as well as holds land based betting shops, will be the 20th operator to enter into cooperation and became a member of ESSA. The agreement is so important, mainly because Fonbet was recognised as the biggest operator on the Russian market. Fonbet holds 1,180 betting shops, which is over 20% of the market share, and Fonbet’s betting sites are visited by 2.5 million players every month.
Since ESSA focuses on providing an early warning system with a main objective to detect and deter the corruption of ESSA members, Fonbet’s position on the eGambling market will become stronger.
Fonbet chief marketing officer Alexandra Sergeeva said “We have been very impressed by ESSA’s systems and professional operation; it continues to play an important role for our sector not just as an effective alert mechanism, but also defending operators at major policy forums. Fonbet recognises the importance of this and the clear advantages of being part of an organisation of that stature”.
Khalid Ali, secretary general of ESSA, added: “Fonbet is a major player in the Russian betting market and it will add significant value to our alert system, benefiting our wider membership and integrity partners. Fonbet joins other responsible betting operators intent on driving fixers and cheats out of their markets; the options for corrupters continues to diminish as ESSA’s membership and global information sharing network grows”.
One of the operators that entered into a partnership with ESSA, prior to the Fonbet deal, was Betradar. The sports betting operator entered into a partnership in order to step up its efforts in tackling match fixing in tennis.
