Athlete protection in the digital age: monitoring online abuse and betting pressure

29 October 2026

In an era of social media scrutiny and financial incentives, sporting organizations are increasingly deploying technology to defend athletes' mental welfare and betting integrity. The ATP's AI-driven Safe Sport service and NCAA's expanded betting monitoring aim to meet the dual threats to modern sportspeople.

Pressure from the digital court

When the ATP introduced Safe Sport in July 2023, it marked a significant escalation in the governing body’s efforts to curb online athlete abuse. In its first year, the service scanned over 3.1 million social media comments related to 245 players, flagging 162,000 as severe. ATP partner Sportradar’s Integrity Services escalated 3,300 of those comments, identifying 68 perpetrators and making 28 law-enforcement referrals.

This is not an isolated professional issue. Beth Hattman, Associate Director of Business Process Initiatives at the NCAA, told the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee that the organization had expanded its betting monitoring from 13,000 to 22,000 contests annually, focusing on sports betting’s effects on campus. A 2023 survey found 10% of Division I administration respondents were aware of students being harassed online or in-person due to sports-betting interests.

"Abuse could be related to student athletes' performances, activity on the field, or external events like rivalry games," says Hattman. "Through these, we can see that sports betting impacts participants, athletes and non-athletes."

An NCAA survey later found that 67% of campus sports bettors were students, and 41% had placed wagers on their school’s teams. In August 2024, Safe Sport’s data showed over a million comments were flagged as negative in the program’s first year, a further indicator of the scale of online abuse.

Social media, direct messaging, and the rise of sports betting platforms have combined to make athletes’ online space a new arena of sports pressure. In January 2025, Safe Sport International said the online abuse—racist, misogynistic, related to sports performance and mental health—affected athletes psychologically, physically, socially, and professionally. It cited 44% of a 2024 report respondents saying online abuse of athletes had increased in the last year.

AI and investigations meet cyberbullying and cyberbetting

Safe Sport, available to ATP’s top players (the top 250 in singles and 50 in doubles), uses AI as its first line of defense. The ATP says the program monitors social media broadly, flagging abusive comments to player support staff. The system moderates comments on the ATP tour's own social-media channels and has expanded its digital safety efforts to protect athletes from email threats, impersonation, and scams. This means staff can monitor fake posts, websites, and social-media accounts pretending to feature an athlete, while the AI filters comments that refer to illegal activity or include offensive language.

According to figures released by the ATP in August 2024, Safe Sport's program initially flagged 5,600 comments in the first quarter of 2023, rising to 15,000 in the second quarter. That accelerating figure shows an increase in online volume, as well as improving AI detection. Sportradar’s partnerships allow the Safe Sport team to escalate comments that threaten an athlete or match integrity, and take further action where necessary.

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Safe Sport joins a suite of tools sports organisations use to monitor sports-betting threats and online pressure on athletes. The International Betting Integrity Association (IBIA), whose 2023 membership included 35 sportsbook operators, points to its goal of protecting members and consumers from fraud and manipulation, a key piece of its code of conduct.

The Council of Europe’s Sports Integrity unit summarizes the necessary steps to maintain betting integrity: coordination between sports bodies, betting regulators, and law enforcement. Australia’s National Integrity Framework, which includes the Competition Manipulation and Sports Betting policy, implements this where possible. The framework sets clear rules to preserve sporting competition, adding layers of regulation above betting operators’ and athletes’ own protective measures.

This includes governance structures like independent Sports Integrity Commissions to advise sports federations, as well as licensing, betting audits, and strict requirements on record-keeping. Broad regulation is matched by sports organisations enforcing their own rules: WFDF’s and UEFA’s codes of conduct both say that athletes and their teams should never bet on themselves, their sport, or their opponents.

Multiple judgments ahead

Safe Sport's first-year data showed that it's identifying perpetrators and escalating concerns. During its initial year, Sportradar's work identified 68 perpetrators, 28 of which were referred to law enforcement. Early figures like these drew praise from Alicia Walker, manager of British Broadcasting Services, who said that athletes now “have more reason to trust their governing bodies online.“

Not all athletes have access to ATP Safe Sport, however: it’s available to the governing body's 250 best singles and 50 best doubles players. Extending its reach across the rest of the tour and to other sports by improving its monitoring and responses could make it more effective.

Athletes outside the ATP or NCAA may lack comprehensive monitoring and new protections. Expanding Safe Sport's reach across the ATP could bring benefits. This might push the organization into developing the program into a long-term service, adding more sports and broadening its scope over time. Clearer protocols for escalating situations and handling perpetrators would help make this possible, benefiting all athletes who face online abuse.

Finally, innovations in anti-match-fixing technology could move beyond reactive approaches to identify potential threats earlier. With the rise of AI-driven solutions, systems that provide analysis and self-help resources may help athletes move toward safer self-care and psychological support in digital spaces.