How did a computer science academic and reality TV show contestant from Zagreb end up representing illegal sports-betting operator Z6 when it signed a sponsorship agreement with the Croatia national football team?
A joint investigation by Philippe Auclair of Josimar, with the open source outlet Bellingcat.
Asian-facing illegal sports betting operators love, just love a “signing ceremony”. For the uninitiated, these events are organised to mark the start of a partnership between a football club, league or federation and a bookmaker. They almost always follow a similar pattern. A video crew is dispatched to the home ground of the club or national team in question. Executives supposedly representing the operator and its new partner are filmed entering the stadium. Archive footage of the team’s past exploits is cut into the slow-mo pictures of the said “executives” heading for the rostrum. Other attendees, when there are any, are shown receiving lanyards from the hands of female attendants before sitting down for the “press conference” at which executives sing each other’s praises before signing a document purporting to be the contract between the new partners. Current or former players sometimes make a cameo appearance to lend some sparkle to the proceedings. If none are available, a few extras wearing branded shirts are sent to the pitch to be filmed doing keepy-uppies and kicking a football into the empty net.
All of this is for show, staged in order to convince would-be gamblers that the bookmaker concerned is legitimate and that its partnership with team X is genuine.
You don’t believe we (Kaiyun) are sponsors of Real Madrid? Here is Roberto Carlos. The audience, when there is one, is composed of extras. The signed “contract” will end in the paper recycling bin or, more likely, the shredder. And the “executives” of the sports betting operator turn out to be nothing of the kind, without fail.
Josimar has already exposed the identity of some of these. There’s silver fox Dean Hawkes, the Shanghai-based British model who posed as boss of criminal gambling organisation Yabo with representatives of Leicester City, Manchester United and Bayern; there is Craig Haydon, a.k.a. “William Anderson”, the D-list actor who has played the role of “founder” of Milan’s current Asian betting sponsor Surewin for several years now, sometimes replaced by Louisiana musician and fellow actor Rhadd Hunt.
A new name can now be added to the list: “Alexander Smith”, the bespectacled, bearded gentleman who represented Dragon Z6 on the occasion of the “signing ceremony” which celebrated the bookmaker’s deal with the Croatian National Football team. The film of the event was shot in May 2024, a few days before the Croatian FA (NHS) published an official statement on its website1. This deal will run until the conclusion of the forthcoming 2026 World Cup, where Croatia, a regular over-performer on the biggest of all footballing stages, will be England’s first opponent on 17 June in Dallas.
“Today, I am delighted to announce a momentous partnership“, “Alexander Smith” said in English. “The Dragon Z6dotcom family proudly welcomes the Croatia national football team“. Smith’s slight but unmistakable accent gave the game away: he’d heard English for the first time at school, not in the cradle, and not in an English-speaking country either.
Establishing the identity of an impersonator can be tricky, especially since increased media attention and regulatory pushback have made illegal sports betting operators more cautious over time. They leave far fewer clues than they used to. In “Smith’s” case, though, using facial recognition software PimEyes, it only took minutes to establish who he really was and what he did for a living, and not much longer for Josimar and Bellingcat to come up with some unexpected findings.
The scientist
Branko Balon is no actor. He is a Croatian national, a senior lecturer of computer science at the Algebra Bernays University in Zagreb where, according to the University’s website, “[…] his professional work has been directed towards the analysis and development of information and communication technologies and the management of information services and their multidisciplinary application in education. With twenty published scientific and professional papers2, he is a regular speaker at domestic and international scientific and professional conferences”.
Branko Balon’s interests are not limited to computer science. As shown by his public Facebook page, the lecturer also has a taste for the good life. He has published photographs of himself relaxing in a swimming pool, posing as James Bond, next to a Rimac Concept One, a high-performance electric hypercar designed and manufactured in Croatia (retail price 980,000 USD) and (a recurring theme) in the company of younger women.
Contrary to other fake sports betting executives, Mr Balon doesn’t shun publicity. In 2022, together with his daughter Ivana and her husband Ante, he took part in a well-known Croatian culinary TV show, “Who Cooks Better For Me?”, but failed to convert Ivana to vegetarianism. The Branko Balon episode has garnered 77,000 views on YouTube.
He was wearing a special T-shirt for the occasion, emblazoned with “Croatia”, written in Chinese characters. This was not a coincidence. Branko Balon’s links with China go way further than the selection of a red t-shirt to go on national TV or pretending to be the “representative” of a gambling operator which primarily targets the illegal Chinese market.
The Chinese Connection
Branko Balon, scientist and bon vivant, is also the president of of the Croatian-Chinese Friendship Society, has visited PRC on several occasions and is regularly involved in events promoting Chinese culture at home, such as the one pictured below, which took place in the Croatian capital Zagreb on 13 June 2025 under the banner “Civilization Encounter: The Week of Culture of Jiangsu Province in Croatia“.
Less than a month later, on 9 July 2025, Mr Balon was speaking on the subject of “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Human Civilizations” at the 11th Nishan Forum on World Civilizations in Qufu, east China’s Shandong Province, at an event thought to be important enough to attract the attention of Venezuela’s newspaper, Ultimas Noticias.
This was Professor Balon’s second documented visit to the PRC in 2025, as he had delivered a lecture entitled “Civilization Innovation: A New Driving Force to Inspire Mankind” at the Nishan World Center of Confucian Studies in February and may have stayed for a few weeks, as he posted this video filmed in Jinan, Shandong province, on his YouTube channel on 14 March 2025. He was made a “Special Researcher of Nisan World Center for Confucian Studies” on this occasion. This appointment shouldn’t be considered purely honorific, given the close relationship which exists between Confucian societies, which have the full support of the president Xi Jinping, and the Chinese authorities.
The high esteem in which Mr Balon is held is also illustrated by the invitation he received, again in 2025, to share his thoughts about A.I. with the Chinese ambassador to Zagreb, H.E. Qi Qianjin. The Croatian computer scientist raved about China’s progress in artificial intelligence and was quoted as saying that “China’s DeepSeek, an artificial intelligence platform, has jumped to the forefront, leaving behind competitors such as ChatGPT and other American platforms”. The report also noted that “Prof. Balon himself uses DeepSeek in his work and considers it a very useful tool”.
Professor Balon was also involved in the discussions leading to the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Croatia and the province of Shandong in November 2024, featuring prominently in the coverage of the agreement.
What is unclear is why a respected academic who has been working alongside Chinese government officials in a public capacity would ever agree to play a similarly public role on behalf of an illegal betting platform which, in China, would be categorised as a criminal venture. Moreover, the video which features him as “Alexander Smith” pre-dates his 2025 trips to PRC by several months.
From KashBet to ZZ6
But what about the operator which “Alexander Smith” represented at the signing ceremony of its partnership with the Croatian FA? Z6[.]com has existed as a domain name since August 1997. The brand? Only for a few years, with 2023 a good candidate for its date of birth in its present incarnation: it is the year when that domain name was “updated”, suggesting a possible change of ownership3.
The operator behind Z6 has been active for much longer than that, however. For once, the corporate story which is told on Z6’s main website4 might not be so far from what actually happened.
“Zunlong Kaisheng was formed by the merger of Zunlong, a top Asian game operator, and Kaisheng, an internationally renowned entertainment group“, it reads. “In early 2022, Zunlong announced a powerful alliance with Kaisheng, and will continue to provide users with a safe, convenient, and reputable supreme gaming experience”.
The result of this “alliance” under the sign of the Dragon is Z6, the “phoenix brand” of another well-known operator, KB88, or “KashBet”, who have a long history of partnering with elite football clubs. It is telling that all Z6 mirror sites make a point of insisting on the brand’s lineage and list KB88’s former partners as theirs, be they ex-footballers turned ambassadors like Eden Hazard or Robin van Persie5, or football clubs.
These former partners are, in order of appearance, Queen’s Park Rangers, the doyen (2012), Ajax and AS Roma (2017), Bayer Leverkusen (2018), Fluminense, Wigan Athletic and Melbourne Victory (2019). Melbourne Victory had signed the partnership with a Hong Kong media agency called Kaishi Entertainment and pulled out of the deal when they found out about their links with KashBet. German club FC Augsburg is also mentioned, when it was a partner of the Bandao Sports brand rather than of KB88 or KashBet at the time. However, the KB88 brand has been advertised on the perimeter boards of the Augsburg Arena in the past. The screenshot below is taken from footage of the Augsburg 2-2 draw with Bayern Munich, played on 19 October 2019.
KashBet may also have had links with another brand, Tianbo[.]com, the Croatian national team’s betting partner from 2020 to 2022. This suspicion is reinforced by the striking resemblance between shots of the Poljud Stadium, the home of the Croatian national team in Split, in videos celebrating the “signing ceremonies” of both operators, as can be seen below.
Right of reply
Josimar and Bellingcat contacted Mr Balon, who replied to us in these terms: “You have reached me on my university email. Sorry not to have reacted before, but I am very, very busy. Can you explain me (sic) what is it all about?” A list of detailed questions was forwarded to him. In the absence of any response, we reached out to Mr Balon on two more occasions, without success. Algebra Bernays University did not respond to our request for comment.
Eden Hazard’s agent did not reply to our enquiries. Kees Voss, Robin van Persie’s representative at the SEG International agency, wrote back: “We at SEG have not been involved in all past endorsements of Mr. Van Persie. Some endorsements were brought to Mr. Van Persie directly by other intermediaries, and therefore we don’t have access to all original photos from certain photoshoots. I’m 100% certain that Mr. Van Persie has nothing to do with ‘Dragon Casino’ and any pictures used by them is an infringement of Mr. Van Persie’s image rights. We have instructed our team to investigate this situation thoroughly. Thanks for pointing it out to us”.
The Croatian FA, its “international CEO” Dennis Lukančić and its marketing director Ante Cicvarić were contacted for comments and clarification.
We received the following response from Lukančić.
“Thank you for your email and for giving us the opportunity to comment.
First of all, we want to inform you that Croatia Football Federation always respects regulations and rules (FIFA and UEFA) as well national (sic) legislation of the Republic of Croatia.
Regarding the signing ceremony, we note that the Croatian Football Federation did not publish or officially communicate the identity of the Dragon Z6 representative present at the event. As is customary with such ceremonies, the event itself was of a promotional nature and did not constitute the formal execution of contractual documentation.
The Croatian Football Federation is not in a position to comment on the internal decisions, communications, or presentation choices of Dragon Z6, including the use of names or identities in their own materials or appearances. Any questions regarding the identity or representation of Dragon Z6 at promotional events are best addressed to Dragon Z6 or their representatives.
The agreement was formally executed between the relevant legal entities, represented by their duly authorised signatories, in accordance with standard industry practice.
Prior to entering into the agreement, the Federation conducted standard compliance and due diligence procedures through its internal processes and external partners, focusing on the contractual counterparty and applicable regulatory frameworks.
In any of our proceedings we always negotiate in good faith and we respect all rights and obligations that arise from any agreement. We do not comment on specific commercial terms beyond what has already been publicly communicated”.
As this reply did not address the specific questions that had been put to the Croatian FA and its representatives, we wrote back with a further list of questions. Mr Lukančić responded: “in our previous email we gave you already (sic) all answers and our position in this matter”, without adding any further comment.
Attempts were made to contact Kashbet and Dragon Casino but proved fruitless.
This article will be updated if and when we receive further replies to our enquiries from “Alexander Smith” or any of the other parties mentioned in this investigation.
- The video of the event gives 12 May 2024 as the date of the signing while the Croatian FA website mentions 17 May 2024. ↩︎
- A list of academic papers published by Dr. Balon can be accessed here. ↩︎
- Details such as the identity of the Registrant of the Z6[.]com domain name have been redacted. ↩︎
- This website is accessible from the United Kingdom without using a VPN. ↩︎
- Robin van Persie had previously been a global ambassador for two other Asian-facing operators, BK8 and Hot88. ↩︎
