UK bookmakers' offshore links exposed as report maps £2bn black-market network

Three of Britain’s biggest bookmakers — Ladbrokes, William Hill and Betfred — profited from a deal with an offshore casino network they have publicly warned against, the Guardian revealed on 1 October.

The paper’s latest reporting from the Casino Secrets leak — thousands of files from the Curaçao gambling regulator’s portal — shows the Santeda network signed a 2022 deal with Sports Information Services (SIS), the UK content provider part-owned by the three firms. SIS supplied Santeda websites with racing and betting data for two years under an auto-renewing deal, taking a cut of revenue from losing bets, the leaked contract shows. Companies House filings suggest SIS shareholders received at least £37m in dividends since the deal was signed — £30m in 2023 alone — with the three bookmakers owning more than 50% of SIS between them. The firms are understood to have been unaware of the arrangement.

Separately, a GAMRS report co-authored by DealMeOut chief executive Jordan Lea estimates that Santeda International BV and its Mystake.com brand anchor a black-market network with turnover of about £3.51bn a year — 64%, or £2.02bn, derived from the UK market.

The report, published on GambleRss, drew on 96 customer testimonies and names the Mystake, Cosmobet, Velobet, Goldenbet and Rolletto brands; it puts Mystake’s annual turnover at £1.2bn, with UK players making up 64.8% of its global traffic.

Fact-check: 19/19 core facts PASS against named sources. Image subject-verified: real UK Ladbrokes shopfront, CC BY-SA 2.0.