Amir SohailNEW YORK, (ZM NEWSWIRE) — Fanatics Sportsbook announced today a partnership with Integrity Compliance 360, Inc. (IC360) and Signify Group to establish the Bad Actor Program at a time when online hostility toward athletes is increasing across social media. As online abuse continues to affect athletes in the United States and abroad, the Bad Actor Program represents an important step in safeguarding the well-being of everyone involved in legal sports betting.
Beginning at the start of the football season, IC360 will collaborate with Signify Group’s Threat Matrix service to monitor for targeted abusive and threatening content across multiple social media platforms. If problematic abuse and threats are detected targeting athletes, organizations, and teams on open source social media, the individuals behind those accounts will be placed into IC360’s ProhiBet Bad Actor platform. Similar to IC360’s ProhiBet platform, which helps restrict wagering by athletes, coaches, and trainers, ProhiBet Bad Actor will provide sportsbooks with the ability to restrict wagering by those who threaten athletes and coaches.
The new Bad Actor Program will leverage Signify’s position as the leading provider of social media protection to global sports by receiving evidence of abuse and threats by sports bettors directly from its proactive Threat Matrix Service. As part of Threat Matrix’s monitoring of global sports competitions, athletes and officials are encouraged to report abusive direct messages (DMs) directly. Once submitted, Signify analyzes the reports, assesses their severity, and escalates serious cases to its in‑house specialists for detailed investigation. Where behaviour appears to cross criminal thresholds, the team compiles evidence packs for referral to law enforcement agencies.
Fanatics Sportsbook, as the first legal sports betting member of the Bad Actor Program, will suspend or permanently terminate a customer’s account if it is determined that they have engaged in abusive, threatening, defamatory, or harassing conduct of any kind toward sports officials, coaches, or athletes. Fanatics Sportsbook has a zero-tolerance policy for bettors who engage in threatening conduct toward sports figures. The Bad Actor program will take it a step further with evidence-based reports and a list of names that can be shared among other like-minded legal sports betting operators to ensure that those who overstep the mark online can be identified and held accountable.
The Bad Actor Program will also share vital intelligence and evidence with sports leagues and teams where athletes are targeted to enable stakeholders to activate mitigating measures and enforcement actions of their own with the support of the Threat Matrix team.
“This groundbreaking program will hold bettors accountable for threats made against players, coaches, and officials. It falls in line with our core values at Fanatics – respect and tolerance for the athletes and coaches that play the games that we love,” said Matt King, CEO of Fanatics Betting and Gaming. “We encourage other operators to join the initiative because there is no sports betting potential loss that should embolden a sports betting customer to threaten or harass an athlete online.”
The collective Bad Actor Program, combining Signify’s Threat Matrix and IC360’s ProhiBet BA (Bad Actors), is the first industry network designed to identify, alert, and prevent bad actors from creating accounts or placing wagers. The Bad Actor Program will monitor public-facing activity targeting individual athletes and coaches across X, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. This holistic approach ensures that both direct and indirect abuse – including commentary in reply threads, reposts, and wider fan discourse – is captured and assessed. IC360 and Signify Group will deliver comprehensive monitoring, investigation, and reporting to safeguard athletes and coaches from online abuse, threats, and harassment.
“Threats of violence and harassment in sports at arenas and on social media are increasing at an alarming rate, undermining the integrity of the sports betting industry,” said Scott Sadin, Co-CEO of IC360. “Addressing the individuals with ProhiBet BA and Threat Matrix is crucial to protecting athletes and other stakeholders from serious, long-term harm.”
“We commend Fanatics Sportsbook for taking a leadership position on an issue that affects athletes across every sport. This is a clear message to anyone who believes threatening, harassing or abusing athletes online is simply part of being a fan: it is not.” said Jonathan Hirshler, CEO of Signify Group. “Over the last few years, many of our global sports clients have been calling for Betting and Gaming Operators to tackle this growing problem head on. Working together with Fanatics Sportsbook and IC360, we’re glad to be able to offer that.”
The Bad Actor is designed to act as a deterrent and punishment for abusive online offenders while showing athletes and coaches that social media threats can be detected, investigated and actioned, improving their mental health and relationship with sports fans.
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About IC360
Integrity Compliance 360 (IC360) is a global technology and consultancy leader specializing in comprehensive integrity and compliance solutions for sports, sports betting, gaming, prediction markets, and iGaming. IC360’s mission is to redefine industry standards by delivering exceptional services that guarantee integrity, transparency, and compliance across the rapidly evolving global sports betting and integrity ecosystem. For more information, visit ic360.io.
About Signify Group
Signify Group is a global leader in online threat intelligence, investigations and digital risk protection. Its proprietary Threat Matrix platform helps sporting organizations, athletes, brands and public-facing individuals identify, investigate and respond to online abuse, threats, harassment and integrity risks. Combining advanced AI-driven technology with specialist investigative expertise, Signify delivers intelligence-led solutions that protect people, safeguard reputations and support the integrity of sport. The company works with leading sports governing bodies, leagues, teams, brands and corporate organizations worldwide to address emerging threats across social media, open-source intelligence and the wider digital ecosystem. For more information, visit www.signify.ai
About Fanatics Betting and Gaming
Launched in 2021, Fanatics Betting and Gaming is the online and retail sports betting subsidiary of Fanatics, a global digital sports platform. The Fanatics Sportsbook, now the fastest growing sportsbook in America, is available to 95% of the addressable online sports bettor market in the U.S. Fanatics Casino is currently available online in Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Fanatics Betting and Gaming operates twenty-five retail sports betting locations, including the only sportsbook inside an NFL stadium at Northwest Stadium. Fanatics Betting and Gaming is headquartered in New York with offices in Denver, Leeds and Dublin.
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