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A daily podcast delving into the biggest stories of the day throughout the sports betting and igaming sector.
Charlie Horner (00:03.072)
Montenegro-based operator Tether.bet has abruptly shut down its site, redirecting users to Philippines-based platform N VIP88.
ted (00:14.459)
You good?
Martyn (00:15.115)
Okay.
Charlie Horner (00:20.674)
Mate, you lost me.
Martyn (00:22.721)
Yeah.
Charlie Horner (00:25.518)
Okay. Let's go from the top.
Charlie Horner (00:32.642)
Montenegro based operator Tether.bet has abruptly shut down its site, redirecting users to a Philippines based platform, double NVIP88. The closure followed intense media coverage from the Sunday Times and The Guardian, alleging links between the site, high stakes UK bettors, payments firms, and major reform UK donors and officials. This week, Labour Chair Bridget Phillipson wrote to the Gambling Commission.
demanding an investigation into unlicensed UK operations, thrusting obscure black market gambling into the heart of Westminster politics. What was Tetherbet? Why did it shut down? Is this all just political point scoring? And what does this all tell us about the fight against illegal gambling in the UK? Welcome back to iGaming Daily, supported by Optimove, the creator of positionless marketing and the number one player engagement solution for sports betting and iGaming operators.
I'm Charlie Horner and today to discuss all of this with me is our media director, Martin Elliott, and our editor at large, Ted Menmuer. Martin, thanks for joining us. How are you doing?
Martyn (01:41.719)
Very well, very well. I've been greatly enjoying this story that we're going to talk about today. There are some serious elements to it, but also some quite humorous ones as well.
Charlie Horner (01:53.838)
Yeah, great. Ted, thanks for coming on as well. How are you?
ted (01:59.412)
Good, Charlie, and glad to be talking about UK politics and its shenanigans with Martin. And yeah, I'd say there are some kind of funny elements in this story.
Charlie Horner (02:11.97)
Yeah, definitely, definitely. Let's let's start off though with a little bit of breaking news that hit the hit the news desk this morning, Ted. we'll we'll come to you for this one because it's all changer, all win and for the UK national lottery, isn't it?
ted (02:25.615)
Yes, breaking this morning, Orwin UK have announced that Andrea Vidler has exited as CEO and will be replaced by City Gaming's Phil Walker. This is a surprising news headline considering Orwin UK and its positions as the steward of the National Lottery and it comes ahead of the Gambling Commission presenting its first audit of Orwin UK and the National Lottery and its funding.
for good causes. Also as we know, Orwin UK is carrying up key upgrades of the National Lottery and its retail system and partnerships. It's a very busy company in terms of the UK scene and how it's going to reposition the National Lottery, its brand.
it's funding and also it comes amid a myriad of changes for the whole UK gambling sector so it's definitely a a company that we are following closely.
Charlie Horner (03:27.95)
Certainly is. It's an interesting storyline at an interesting time, and I think we might might just put this story under the spotlight on the podcast in in the coming days. But for now, let's return to this obscure story really that blends illegal gambling and and UK politics. Ted, what what was Tetherbet and why is this obscure illegal gambling?
platform. Now the topic de jour in Westminster this week.
ted (03:59.454)
Well...
Obscure it may be, but Tetherbet brands itself as a high-stakes sportsbook and casino built for cryptocurrency players that enable Stablecoin's interchange transactions via the Stablecoin Tether. The business is founded by George Cottrell and licensed in three jurisdictions of Montenegro, Cyprus and Curaçao. Its website holds no balance that it targets VIP crypto customers. However, it has IP blocked any UK traffic.
A Sunday Times investigation revealed that from at least 2022, UK VIP customers were allegedly able to gamble with Tetherbet through what it described as private client operations.
It has become a headline story because the investigation intersects with the finances and associates of Nigel Farage and Reform UK. Yesterday, Labour Chair Bridget Phillipson commanded the gambling commission to examine whether Tetherbet and the payments business of FisPay were involved in unlicensed gambling activity targeting UK consumers.
And the timing matters as Nigel Farage, who is the leader of Reform Party, faces continued scrutiny and is yet to explain transactions of five million made to him personally by crypto investor Christopher Harbour. Tetherbet was terminated as Farage was placed under investigation by Parliament's Financial Committee. To me, this story kind of intermingles the blowback on Reform, the background of its donors.
ted (05:38.303)
and offshore gambling and the rhetoric to Farage and his belief that he's being targeted by the establishment. There's lots to kind of peel in here and I can't wait for Martin's opinion.
Charlie Horner (05:51.351)
Yeah, let's let's put this into a bit of context, I think, because we're we're talking about gambling platforms, Reform UK, Nigel Farage, and lots of other different characters. Martin, maybe you could just put some colour on onto that for us and explain some of the characters and and companies that we're talking about here and and tell w why this is such a big story.
Martyn (06:12.471)
Sure. Well, let's start with Nigel Farage, who's by far the best known of the people we're talking about here. He is a well-known politician and also one of the most consequential politicians of our time, in the UK at least, as he was very much the face of the Brexit campaign. But despite that, he's never really held any particular position of power.
But Reform UK is his latest political vehicle and he's had many because I don't think it's a secret to really that he falls out with people on a very regular basis and has to start new political parties because the previous members don't like him so much. But yeah, Reform UK have been leading in the polls for a long time. In fact, only last week was the time, the first time Labour had...
knocked reform off the top of the polls for about 18 months. So people are getting really interested in the UK into who this guy is and what he would do. He's no longer just an amusing sideline in British politics. So he's the main figure in this. And this is why this has become such a big story, because of possible links to him.
We should say he's not involved in Tether.bet in any way, shape or form, as far as we know anyway. Christopher Harbourn is a billionaire who he founded the Tether cryptocurrency. And puzzlingly, he gave Nigel Farage, not Reform UK, Nigel Farage a personal gift of five million pounds fairly recently.
And Farajas didn't declare that when he came back into parliament at the 2024 general election. So it looks like there's a chance he broke some rules around declaring funds and so on. And Farajas very much made the situation worse for himself by offering multiple explanations for what this donation was for.
Martyn (08:38.283)
which range from, it was a gift to do whatever I wanted to, or it was a thank you for Brexit, which seems a little bit unlikely. I how thankful can you be? And the last one is it's to pay for his personal security because there's a lot of hostility towards Farage and he does have genuine fears for his safety. And then the third character in this is a guy called George Cottrell.
This guy is straight out of a detective fiction. He is from a quite well-off background, and he's known to reform members as Posh George, which is a fairly unimaginative nickname, given how posh almost all of them are at the top end of that party. But he is a professional gambler. He's a very close ally of Nigel Farage.
But perhaps the most interesting thing about him is he is a convicted fraudster who served some time in prison in the US for a fraud committed there. But Nigel Farage has stood by this guy. And Cottrell, since leaving prison, has provided further donations to both Nigel Farage and Reform UK. And there have been some
some donations coming from George Cottrell's family as well. So this is all linked in and what I've outlined there is it's all stuff that
an average person on the street might think looks a bit dodgy. Why is all this money going round? Why are people doing things? But none of it is technically illegal. However, what might be illegal, and what the Sunday Times is certainly alleging, is that Cottrell's direct involvement in Tetherbet, where, and we should also point out, Cottrell does deny this role in Tetherbet.
Martyn (10:43.479)
But it's alleged that he was introducing VIP customers to Tevabet, and they are British VIP customers, which would very definitely be illegal if that is the case. And then, you know, there's a line drawn back through various payments companies, one called FISPAY, which is alleged to have been involved in processing payments, another one called IFX, which worked with
FisPay, according to the Sunday Times. Although IFX, pains to point out, they had no knowledge that any of this sort of cryptocurrency had been used in illegal gambling. And IFX, owned by Christopher Harbourn, although IFX also said Harbourn had no day-to-day involvement in running that company and no awareness of anything they were doing with FisPay.
And let's be really blunt here. The Sunday Times lawyers have obviously looked at the evidence they've got in this and were very, very keen, if you've read the article, because it repeats all the way through. There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by Christopher Harbourn in that. They were clearly very keen not to get sued by a billionaire as part of this story. So that's it in a nutshell.
It's kind of one of these jigsaw stories where there's lots of elements to it. It's quite difficult to put your finger on what the wrongdoing, if any, might be. It just feels wrong.
Charlie Horner (12:23.234)
Yeah, and we should we should clarify that yeah, Cottrell says that he was only a a user of Tetherbett and not that he was involved. Christopher Harborn denies any involvement in this, and Mowbray Jackson, who is a reform UK official who owns Fispay, also denies involvement in this. And there is no suggestion that Nigel Farage himself is involved in this operation. but the interesting political
story from from this that's that's followed on this week before we go to a break is that Bridget Phillipson, who is the the the chairperson of the Labour Party who who governs in the UK has demanded that the Gambling Commission investigates Tetherbet and whether they took on UK customers without a license. Now, Ted, how realistic is it for a UK regulator to be able to enforce actions against
a company domiciled in a in a completely different jurisdiction like Montenegro. I think we've spoken a lot in the past about how difficult it is to actually have jurisdiction on on businesses based elsewhere and offshore.
ted (13:27.517)
Mm-hmm.
ted (13:32.628)
Yes, and I've actually been thinking about this reading the story. This goes back directly to our kind of Tim Miller, our episode with Tim Miller, the former Executive Policy Director of the Gannett Commission. I think it was episode 796. And in he which he said, you cannot fight the illegal market simply by trying to prosecute every offshore operator.
The commission has jurisdiction over gambling supply to consumers in Great Britain. Yeah, it's physically compelling and operators sitting out, but can it kind of enforce?
on an operator that sits outside Britain's kind of remit. And also within kind of a fragmented European environment, what are kind of the protocols there that can help it kind of prosecute that? This is a test of the gambling commission, and it's actually being placed right under the spotlight by the Labour government. know, how can, if it finds out any kind of liabilities, how can it enforce there?
what are kind of its measures and its actions against an offshore operator and one that has actually serviced UK clients.
I think one of the interesting liabilities that this case points to is that, we often talk about the black market targeting vulnerable consumers. What this, what Tetherbit appears to have done was target VIP customers via kind of its intersection of applying the mechanics of stable coins to its platform that it knows are attractive to high level wagering. And, you know, that becomes a utility for service.
ted (15:19.153)
seeing big players or high spend players. I think as Martin says, mean, there's a lot to unravel here about the technical right liabilities of enforcing such actions by the commission onto unlicensed platforms, whether it's Tetherbet or anyone else.
Charlie Horner (15:44.142)
Mm-hmm. Okay, well sorry, go ahead.
Martyn (15:45.656)
Do you think there might, sorry, yeah, do you think there might be a role for the financial conduct authority here? Because we've seen in Denmark this week, their financial regulator take pretty aggressive action against the payments provider there.
ted (16:02.247)
I mean, to me this screams like if it does go to an investigation, this could take months.
And then, you've got to kind of, you've got to really look at this case and take out the framework of how this operator would be able to service such high volume customers. What payment processes are they doing? Also, the role of kind of the Tether stablecoin itself would have to be kind of distinguished there. I believe that this would be a significant case for the gambling commission, but also kind of the UK judiciary.
and how it would actually charge anyone found guilty of these charges.
Charlie Horner (16:44.93)
Yeah, it sounds like a an establishin' an establishment attack to me. But we'll take a very quick break and we'll come back and we'll we'll continue to talk about this discussion in a little bit more detail.
Charlie Horner (17:00.588)
Welcome back to iGaming Daily. Now, this this tether bet story has has come at a time when gambling is already feeling the heat from this Labour government. We we know that the aim to permit rule is a target of the government. We don't know whether that means opening up the Gambling Act review again. potentially that that might be on the on the cards at some point. how much reputational damage, Martin, do you think that?
this a sort a story like this does to the legal license sector that we know is kind of working quite hard to clean up its image.
Martyn (17:38.112)
Well, that depends on how much attention anyone is paying to this, how closely they're following. Theoretically, this should be a great story for the regulated gambling industry, because it backs up the idea that it's quite easy to go offshore and bet offshore. And people who work in the industry know full well that VIP customers are very profitable customers.
are more likely to go, are at risk of going offshore because they can get better odds. There's no real KYC. No one's asking where they get the money from. It's less intrusive. So we know that. The public doesn't know that or understand it. I don't think MPs know or understand that either. So if I was being positive on this, would say this is great. It's shown a
ted (18:23.613)
Mm-hmm.
Martyn (18:33.811)
spotlight on that. It's proof that what the gambling industry has been saying, what the regulated gambling industry has been saying is kind of true. However, I don't think people read stuff in as much detail as that. I think a lot of people just perhaps dismiss this as gambling industry looks a bit dodgy. They're working with some quite dodgy looking characters there, aren't they? And I think that might be the...
and unfortunately the outcome of this in terms of reputation.
ted (19:07.027)
I just want to interject there because I think you have to just look at the news lines at the moment and this is the biggest story in UK politics and UK media at the moment. You know, it concerns kind of the...
the biggest headline maker in Nigel Farage, the guy who's kind of rupturing UK political circles, the funding of his party. And to me, it kind of screams out that headlines are becoming, or could turn into, this is a gambling scandal, rather than this is an investigation of offshore license gambling and its impact on the UK market. The former is a much easier headline to grab at for the media. And I think that there could be a lot of blowback coming our way.
Charlie Horner (19:50.541)
Yeah, I'm really on the fence on on this. I think I think on on one hand, I I I'm not t so optimistic on how much people read the fine details of of stories like this and and we might just see the gambling industry tarred with the same brush as as the the the the illegal sector. However, if government ministers and and very high s senior level politicians are asking the gambling commission to conduct an investigation
at least that means that people at the highest levels of government are aware of what illegal gambling looks like and they can compare that to the regulated sector and hopefully you know draw the draw a sensible conclusion from that. we'll wait and see. but an interesting aspect of this story is is the the inclusion of of payment companies, I think. the the fact that the Sunday Times has included the the payment providers in their investigation.
ted (20:43.483)
Mm-hmm.
Charlie Horner (20:49.762)
D and we we've talked about this and I think Ted we mentioned in in our interview with Tim Miller as well. And do you think that this shows that the providers to to the the the unlicensed sector are essential to their operations and therefore they should be at the the heart or the forefront of taking these sites down?
ted (21:09.171)
100%, yes. It's critical.
What is often gonna misunderstood is that, yes, there's a value chain for the regulated sector, but there's also one that's replicated for the unlicensed sector. And there are businesses that have made a lot of profit servicing these platforms, providing key services. And it's something that actually kind of irritates the sector, not only in terms of who are the fair payment providers, but also lots of companies doing rip and runs on data, on the pricing,
especially for sports books. I believe that in the kind of five year review of the five year process of the gambling review, we, you know, we are just beginning to speak about unlicensed gambling, but one of the elements that has not been looked at is how are these kinds of platforms being built?
What is kind of their network? What is their value chains? How do they operate? The other thing is that, I think that's what's coming to light is how quick it is for the unlicensed market to launch platforms and to target kind of very effectively the consumer, the segment that they want. We've seen this with high value customers.
with vulnerable players via kind of non-gamstop. And to me, and I'm not sure if what Martin feels about this, but that is such a weapon for them to have that kind of utility to go straight to market, no access. It seems like they don't have as many barriers as the regulated market.
Martyn (22:52.479)
I mean, I think you're completely right. That's one of the most frustrating things about the illegal market is, you know, they can target customers very easily. The margins are higher because there lots of steps that just don't exist in their business. And there's no real comeback for them if they prove to be even less honest than just
ted (23:08.903)
Mm-hmm.
ted (23:18.524)
Yeah.
Martyn (23:20.503)
avoiding tax. is a court case, can't, a police investigation rather, rather than a court case, into another operation in the UK which is slightly covered by reporting restrictions at the moment, but in essence it was a VIP gambling syndicate in which somebody was organising that, taking hundreds of thousands of pounds, staking it with
offshore operators based in Asia on Premier League football. And then this has all gone very wrong because some of those Asian operators turned around and said, we're not paying you your winnings. And then there's no comeback for the punter in that scheme. there are all sorts of legal fallings out from that here as well. So there are dangers for players when they go to...
ted (23:53.831)
Mm-hmm.
ted (24:04.686)
you
Martyn (24:19.349)
to these offshore operators. And I don't think you can overstate just what those dangers are. They will accept any money. And some of them are just straightforward fraudsters. There's no getting away from it.
Charlie Horner (24:35.982)
Yeah, and I think it's just important that w the the regulated sector does a better job of of educating users on that. just bringing things towards a close and and bringing it back to the story that we've talked about throughout the episode. what do you think this is actually about? Is it a story about illegal gambling, about a brand in Montenegro now redirecting players to the Philippines?
Or do you think this is just a political takedown of Reform UK and political point scoring? And I think it's interesting that the Sunday Times has taken the lead on on this, given that n naturally they they're they're a a a right wing leaning newspaper, you would expect someone like The Guardian to to run pieces like this on on on reform. But do you think the fact that the Times is now going after the the
Farage and his and his dealings is is significant and do you think that th this means it is just a a a political takedown? Martin, what do you think?
Martyn (25:34.424)
The only reason it's in the Tetherbet stuff is in the public domain really is because it involved somebody who can be linked to Nigel Farage. I think it is very definitely a political take down. I'm not 100 % convinced it's a take down of reform as a whole rather than just the take down of Farage. The level of detail they've got and reading between the lines.
They've been passed a lot of emails which detail a number of the allegations, not just about Tetherbet, but about the funding and so on. And this is all about Farage. what you've also seen while this has been going on and Farage has been distracted by it is that Reform UK have taken a lurch from being a
a right-wing party to being a very right-wing party with their policy chief coming out and saying things like, we're going to have mass deportation of immigrants and this kind of thing, which has always been way to the right of what Farage has campaigned for. So this is guesswork completely, but it could be an inside job. But then again, know, Bridget Phillipson has jumped in.
Two-footed tackle gone straight for it hasn't she? As a party chairman's role appears to have here so who knows but yeah the political bit is why it's such a high profile story certainly.
Charlie Horner (27:16.43)
Ted, what do you think?
ted (27:20.453)
Yeah, I agree with so much of what Martin says. mean, the focus here is that Nigel Farage is, you know, the man of the moment in UK politics. He is now viewed, I think, by both Labour and Conservative as the main opposition in how how kind of UK politics map is being reformed.
I wonder how many scandals they've got, you know, hiding in terms of reform. You've got to remember just the way this party was set up. It was obviously overnight. And these are kind of changing times for UK politics. Also, there is kind of that element of kind of the old establishment looking after itself, going after kind of like these, I wouldn't you know, looking after kind of its interests, yeah, and how much kind
that map is going to be reshaped. To me, of everything kind of points towards Andy Burnham, what's his view of Farage and whether he calls an election come the end of the year, which is looking more and more likely at this point.
Charlie Horner (28:38.766)
Yeah, I think strike while the iron is hot and if your if your political opponents are sort of fighting between themselves, then maybe that's the that's the time to go. And I think it certainly is a time when th the the British right are are certainly jostling for for p pole position. but let's let's drop our politics daily mantle for for now. Ted, thanks for joining me today. Martin, thanks ever so much for joining me as well.
ted (28:42.214)
Yeah.
Charlie Horner (29:08.643)
Thanks to Optimove for supporting the show and to our listeners. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of iGaming Daily, and come back tomorrow to keep up to date with all the latest global gambling news.