Deputy Commissioner Graham Ashton says federal telephone intercept laws are preventing police from sharing the material with racing authorities, even though police are confident the information would result in racing participants being suspended.
However, the biggest risk facing the nation's sporting codes is match fixing, Mr Ashton told a conference in Melbourne on Tuesday aimed at weeding out sports corruption.
He said police did not have any "real, active" examples of international match-fixing syndicates trying to infiltrate Australian sport.
But it was only a matter of time, given how rife it was overseas, he said.
Sports heavily bet on in Asia, and codes such as cricket, tennis and soccer, which attracted significant offshore betting, were at higher risk, he said.
Match fixing has been the subject of an assessment by the Sports Integrity Intelligence Unit recently set up by Victoria Police.
"What the intelligence assessment is saying is that sporting codes in Australia are relatively clean," Mr Ashton said.
"That's not to say there aren't threats we need to be very aware of.
"We think that they're on our doorstep."
Mr Ashton said drugs in sport were only a small part of the current risk to integrity in sport.
He said police regularly came across criminal activity involving people connected to sporting clubs and codes, predominantly in racing.
Mr Ashton said Victoria Police, through the Victorian government, was lobbying for a change to telephone intercept laws so police could share information with racing officials.
Racing Integrity Commissioner Sal Perna called for such powers earlier this year.
Victorian Premier Denis Napthine said Mr Perna's investigations found no systemic race fixing in Victoria.
But he said the government would continue lobbying the federal government to change the laws so police could pass information on to racing officials.
