Popular Norwegian football app FotMob is being used as a platform to advertise illegal betting across the globe, an investigation by Josimar has uncovered.
By Steve Menary
This year – the year that Norway returns to the World Cup finals for the first time in 28 years – FotMob might well explode. What once started as an SMS service to deliver live results to users has become a football app with a global audience. At its core, FotMob, which was founded by brothers Christer and Tommy Nordvik from Bergen in 2004, is a live-score and football data aggregator. In 2010, they experienced a first boost when the New York Times recommended the app. During the coronavirus pandemic, monthly active users jumped to fifteen million. Today, the app, which boasts of supplying “football scores, stats and news for the Premier league and 500+ leagues,” has more than 20 million users. In 2024, FotMob reported a total revenue of 129,052,000 NOK (13,91 million dollars), primarily earned from in-app display ads, affiliation and fixed advertising placements.
The problem, here, is that a part of this revenue comes from Southeast Asia, which has become a battleground for offshore betting operators. Governments from the region have attempted to crack down on unlicensed operators and imposed strict state monopolies, but digital platforms, including FotMob, serve as conduits for illegal operators, exploiting the ‘borderless’ nature of the internet. Consequently. users accessing FotMob via its mobile phone app or its website in the region will be met by a torrent of advertising from unlicensed betting operators.
The south-east Asian battleground
Advertising for 1xBet – a Russian-owned, Cypriot-based operator ousted from the UK in 2019 for operating a Pornhub – is plastered across FotMob in Malaysia, where online sports betting is illegal. In neighbouring Thailand, 1Xbet is advertising on everything from Norwegian pre-season matches to English youth team games.
In Laos, betting is illegal outside the state-run lottery but the FotMob app there carries adverts for Melbet, which has a licence from the Caribbean island of Curaçao and is widely believed to be connected to 1xBet. Similarly, online betting was banned in neighbouring Cambodia in 2019 to try and combat a growing problem with organised crime, but FotMob is also carrying adverts there for 1xBet.
Indonesia too has outlawed online betting, and the government is planning tougher rules to clamp down on the growing black market, yet FotMob carries adverts in the country for illegal operators, including 1xBet and BC.Game, the crypto casino which sponsors Leicester City in England and cricket franchises in the Caribbean. Josimar revealed in 2024 that the company was declared bankrupt in Curaçao, where it has a licence. More recently, the company’s new chief executive appeared to be revealed as fake.
Online sports betting is a monopoly in Singapore yet adverts for both 1xBet and GemBet, which do not have licences there, are all over FotMob when accessed from the country. FotMob’s advertising for GemBet features ambassadors such as former Real Madrid and Croatia football legend Luka Modrić.
Worthless licences and the scourge of match-fixing
Like many other online betting platforms operating in illegal markets, GemBet has obtained offshore gambling licences in Curaçao and Anjouan, a tiny island in the Indian Ocean, but these jurisdictions offer thin oversight. These regimes do not insist licence holders report suspicious betting patterns indicative of match fixing and money laundering or identify ownership structures.
As a result, betting operators holding these offshore licences, which are classified as illegal under the Council of Europe’s Macolin Convention – the only international convention on match fixing* – are a natural haven for criminal gangs to bet on rigged games and facilitate large-scale money laundering.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) identified illegal betting as the number one factor fuelling corruption in sports. In 2023, UNODC estimated a staggering $1.7 trillion in illegal betting passes through these operators each year – a figure that has almost certainly risen because of the explosion of online betting and the reach of unlicensed operators.
By running adverts in countries where online sports betting is illegal, FotMob is exacerbating these problems. Match-fixing has been a scourge across South East Asia from Thailand to Laos, where 45 players were banned in 2022 alone and major problems with corruption have recently emerged in Malaysia. Cambodia has also become a major hub for scam centres tied to illegal betting operators as Josimar revealed as far back as 2023.
Morocco, India too
FotMob’s app back then advertised 1Xbet to users in Morocco. The operator had launched a massive advertising blitz despite betting only being permitted by state-sanctioned monopoly, la Marocaine des jeux et des sports (MDJS).
Profits generated by MDJS are passed on to Fonds National du Développement du Sport (FNDS), a national fund which finances both grassroots and elite sport throughout the country. Before 1xBet’s unauthorized entry in 2022, FNDS passed on 645 million dirham (63 million dollars) but bettors were increasingly tempted to switch to 1xBet, falsely believing that the company to be a licensed operator, before a fight back by the government. Josimar’s investigation found 1xBet continues to advertise on FotMob in 2026 in Morocco.
Josimar’s investigation also found FotMob running adverts for 1xBet in North African countries where the legal landscape is starkly divided. In Tunisia, where online sports betting is a strict state-controlled monopoly under the Ministry of Youth and Sports, these ads directly bypass government efforts to protect national revenue. Meanwhile, in Algeria, a legal vacuum has allowed a booming black market to flourish, with 1xBet, Melbet and BC.Game all growing rapidly.
Beyond Southeast Asia and northern Africa, FotMob also promotes 1xBet in India, where betting is largely illegal, yet huge demand exists, particularly for cricket. To circumvent geo-blocking by the Indian government, many black market operators pivoted to new promotional tactics, including launching ‘news’ websites that serve as a gateway to betting websites. In response, Indian authorities banned and blocked more than 8,000 sites as part of a regulatory crackdown, including 1xBet and its sister company Melbet, which bypass these restrictions through FotMob.
Operators with offshore licences also rarely have any protection to limit harms with problem bettors, or systems to resolve disputes with aggrieved clients who feel they have been cheated.
Both 1xBet and BC.Game have previously been declared bankrupt in Curaçao, where they have held licences, for failing to pay out winnings. Bettors seeking to reclaim winnings they believe are due have to turn to what is known as Alternative Dispute Resolution providers (ADR).
In the 2024 annual report of one ADR, AskGamblers (the 2025 report has not been published yet), 1xBet and BC.Game were among the Top 3 worst offenders in terms of complaints registered.
FotMob’s reply
Josimar asked FotMob co-founder and chief executive officer Christer Nordvik why the app was running adverts for betting companies in countries where betting was illegal, how long this practice had been occurring and who vets the adverts.
Nordvik replied: “FotMob is a global, ad-supported platform. Advertising in the app is delivered via established third-party partners and is geo-targeted based on user location. These partners are responsible for campaign delivery, targeting, and compliance with applicable local laws and regulations. Advertising is served via third-party partners who are responsible for targeting and compliance in each market. FotMob has operated as a global, ad-supported service for several years using external partners. We conduct high-level vetting of partners and categories, while operational compliance and advertiser-level due diligence sit with our partners.”
FotMob asked for examples of adverts on the app from countries where betting was illegal, which Josimar has provided, and promised to ‘review’ these. “We expect ads on the platform to adhere to applicable local regulations. We are reviewing the examples you’ve provided with our partners,” added Nordvik.
bwise Media, promoting illegal operators and proud of it
At the start of 2025, FotMob agreed a deal with marketing agency bwise Media to manage global ad sales and igaming partnerships across key markets for the app. Over the subsequent 10 months, the deal produced a surge of users for FotMob in many countries around the world from +18% in the UK to +30% in Spain and +66% in Indonesia. “This partnership is about more than just reach – it’s about performance, innovation, and pushing boundaries together,” said Christian Czerko, chief executive officer at bwise Media.
The agreement helped drive a 30% rise in users in the USA but the biggest reported increase – of 138% – was in Japan. In the USA, the app features adverts for FanDuel, a licensed domestic operator, but in Japan, where online gambling is illegal, FotMob once again promotes 1xBet.
The client roster which bwise Media publicly flaunts to promote their business includes 1xBet, BC.Game and Melbet, which are all advertising on FotMob.
Josimar asked Bwise why it was running adverts on FotMob for betting companies in countries where this is illegal, and what vetting is carried out to ensure local betting regulations are being complied with before agreeing advertisements for betting companies on FotMob, but has not received a reply.
While FotMob is being used to advertise illegal betting in many countries around the world, in the company’s domestic market of Norway, where betting is severely restricted, users only see adverts for Norsk Tipping and Oddsen. In other regulated markets, such as the United Kingdom and the USA, FotMob also carries adverts for licensed operators.
Norway was one of the first countries to sign and ratify the Macolin Convention. Josimar asked Eirik Haugen Tysse, coordinator of the Norwegian National Platform against manipulation of sports competitions and a member of the Council of Europe’s Group of Copenhagen responsible for implementing the Macolin Convention, about FotMob carrying adverts for betting companies in countries where this is illegal. Tysse said: “I am not sure whether this hits our area of operation. I am guessing you need to ask those questions to the gambling authority in the countries that you are mentioning. From what I can see it is only marketing of Norsk Tipping in Norway, which is legal.”
*Josimar uses “illegal betting” as defined by Article 3 of the Macolin Convention, which Norway is a signatory to.
