Posted on: October 22, 2024, 10:41h.
Last updated on: October 22, 2024, 10:55h.
In a drab gymnasium, an amateur three-a-side game of futsal is playing out on a scaled-down playing surface. The uninspiring spectacle is billed as “Arsenal versus Real Madrid.” There’s no referee and no spectators. The players look bored. One team scores. No one celebrates.
Elsewhere, a cricket match – of sorts – is unfolding. Two teams of two players compete in a room surrounded by murals showing cheering fans.
What do these two scenes have in common? They’re both examples of what passes for live-streamed gambling entertainment at controversial Russian sportsbook and casino 1XBet.
1XBet accepts in-play bets on thousands of these sad sporting charades which run 24/7, 365 days a year. Their main purpose is to attract bettors who then become targets for cross-selling to the casino. After all, what sports fan wouldn’t want to watch a free live stream of Arsenal versus Real Madrid?
Banned in Russia, Ukraine
Now, investigative site Bellingcat has examined hundreds of hours of 1XBet’s weird amateur tournaments. Using techniques such as reverse imaging, the site has pinpointed their locations to sports venues throughout Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus.
That’s significant because 1XBet is banned both in Russia and Ukraine.
In 2020, Russian prosecutors issued an international arrest warrant for 1XBet’s three founders, Dmitry Kazorin, Roman Semiokhin, and Sergey Karshkov, who has since died, for offering illegal gambling. The indictment describes 1XBet as one of the world’s biggest sportsbooks with revenues of US$2 billion.
In September 2022, the Ukrainian gambling regulator revoked 1xBet’s license because of its Russian ties.
During its investigation, Bellingcat found that players featuring in one match, playing for “Liverpool,” for example, would reappear in subsequent matches representing a different team, such as “Barcelona.” It also found that children as young as 14 were involved in the games.
Fix is In?
Josimar Football, which assisted Bellingcat in the investigation, tracked down one of the players from the fake games. The player told the soccer website that while they were instructed not to fix the outcome, they were told not to score more than five goals in each game, which does amount to match-fixing.
Despite its liberal appropriation of the names of the world’s top soccer teams, 1XBet maintains commercial relationships with Barcelona and Paris St Germain.
EPL teams Tottenham, Liverpool, and Chelsea canned similar deals with 1XBet in 2009 after the operator was accused of offering bets on cockfighting in certain jurisdictions and promoting a porn-themed casino. It was also found to be one of the world’s biggest advertisers on piracy sites that illegally streamed EPL soccer games.
