Rebecca Rolls: NZ Sport Integrity Commission CEO on the concerns about organised crime migrating into sport

Organised crime syndicates could be seeking to infiltrate our sporting landscape. 

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has raised concerns about a global migration of crime into sport. 

New Zealand's Sport Integrity Commission's working with its overseas counterparts and policing experts like Interpol to protect against corruption attempts. 

Chief Executive Rebecca Rolls told Mike Hosking New Zealand has a few factors that makes it uniquely vulnerable to organised crime groups.  

She says we're vulnerable to criminal betting schemes because our sport is streamed at times when there isn't much else to bet on. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Last couple of weeks he's had four senior advisors leave abruptly.
Some have been accused of leaking, so it's a troubled office.
He looks incompetent. I personally don't like the stars and
strike handkerchief he wears in his pocket each day, and
he's got a bad choice of socks. But apart from that,
he's probably looking for a new job. Twenty three minutes
away from seven to France, Catherine Field with the reaction

(00:22):
from that particular part of the world on the Pope,
of course, shortly meantime back here, I claim that international
organized crime syndicate to targeting New Zealand's sport. Others concern
that even grassroots level sport is vulnerable to corruption and doping,
if you can believe it. The Sport Integrity Commission has
engaged inter Pol, among others, for support. The Sport Integrity
Commission CEO Rebecca Rolls is with us on this. Rebecca,
good morning, Good morning mate. Now this is a United

(00:45):
Nations report. Is this one of these very broad based
You better watch out. Here's a red flag if you're
a bit worried and that doesn't actually affect us, or
is it something more than that.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Do you think, well, I mean, I think anything. I
think it's a UNODC reports into Polwark is happening overseas,
and yeah, the threats and I guess maturity of competition
manipulation is more over there. But what we do know
is that that gives us a little bit of a
crystal ball and that we are vulnerable because of a
few unique factors that on the New Zealand has at

(01:13):
the moment. And you know these organized crime groups and
unregulated gambling that markets with trillions of dollars and sits
in for Southeast Asia. So because of that, New Zealand
play sport at a time and the rest of the
world to sleep, and those people who do want to
bet on something will want to be able to obviously
do that live and all of New Zealand and the

(01:35):
East Coast of Australia are playing sport at that time,
and so anything that's online or stream or live in
any way creates a market.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
If we would dodge you right now, do you reckon
you could spot it.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
There's lots of way you can, I mean to be honest.
If you go to some sporting events, you can come
across people in the crowd who they might have, you know,
multiple phones and be talking of interesting parts of the
players that's unfolding, so you can spot sort of some
enablers like that, and I think at the other end,
you know, it's something really really blatant in the sport,

(02:09):
you could spot that as well, but a lot of
it goes unnoticed because it's very small things in any
sport that has kind of games within a game or
smaller components to it as vulnerable.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Does your organization reach into grassroots level sport? I mean
if I'm standing on the sideline on a Saturday, I mean,
would I have any idea that you were monitoring, looking at,
understanding anything about, you know, anything other than elite sport.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah, I think so. We certainly have a lot of
resources and when it's racing stuff online and lots of
I guess policies and educational stuff so people can dive
into that. But in terms of awareness at grassroots level,
I think that's pretty low. And that's kind of nice
because m Dyllan's you know, not a typically corrupt country.

(02:57):
But when we think about sort of for example, in
football in the National League last year there was over
two hundred million bet on the National League in New Zealand,
and that's sort of five hundred thousand to one point
form million a game, about ninety six books book makers,
all sort of off site. Sure, so yes, that's not grassroots,
but that's where our kids come through, you know, grassroots

(03:19):
and then a little small things like offering you a
pair of boats or a scholarship or some sort of
other opportunity that can look really really inviting to kids
and young adults. So those are the kinds of it
is a continuum in New Zealander anywhere, and those are
the sorts of risks that we do try and educate
people on good stuff.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Nice talk to you, Rebecca go Well Rebecca Roles, who's
the Sport Integrity Commissioned CEO. For more from the Mic
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