The University’s Division of Intercollegiate Athletics announced its partnership with U.S. Integrity, a Las Vegas-based sports wagering monitoring company on Tuesday morning. 

The partnership comes in response to the “rapidly growing sports betting landscape in the US,” according to a statement from the DIA.

According to the statement, the firm will monitor sports wagers using its proprietary dashboard and “proactively identify irregular contest-level, officiating and wagering patterns” across several data sets.

Also as part of this partnership, the DIA will be participating in a USI program called ProhiBet that aims to prevent wagers from already prohibited bettors.

Assistant Athletics Director Evan Taylor told the DIA that “the commitment and proactive approach between U.S. Integrity and (DIA) staff will allow us to stay ahead of the curve in an evolving climate where monitoring and education are at the forefront of our efforts.”

According to a PBS article published in May, since sports betting was legalized across all 50 US states in 2018, legal sports bets have totalled over $220 billion. Firms like USI aim to monitor and regulate this market as it continues to grow.

“At the collegiate level, integrity monitoring and education is of utmost importance and this partnership covers all fronts of maintaining and monitoring sports betting integrity,” Matthew Holt, USI’s CEO and co-founder, told the DIA. “We’re looking forward to working with the team at the University of Illinois, and we’re committed to delivering the highest integrity standards.”

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