A Curaçao-licensed bookmaker that produced sponsored content for PornHub claims Francesco Totti as an ambassador - and the honorary consul for Denmark is the managing director of the trust behind it.
By Sam Kunti and Steve Menary in Willemstad, with additional reporting by Philippe Auclair, Jack Kerr, and Trouw’s Matthijs van Dam.
Not even an island paradise is immune from the global outbreak of data centres. A visitor to Curacao’s harbourside capital of Willemstad will be struck by the number and size of the server farms and e-offices which have mushroomed here. In other parts of the world, data centres are weaponising military-grade surveillance data or pumping out AI slop. Here in Curaçao, they are one of the few visible signs of a leading export industry that otherwise operates in obscurity: offshore betting.
If a map of the world represented countries not by their landmass but instead by their contribution to the illegal sports betting market, then Curaçao would not be a speck in the ocean but a continental body as big as Australia. It is to offshore gambling what Panama or the Cayman Islands are to the tax secrecy industry: a safe space for those who do not wish to play by the usual rules.
While many Europeans may not have heard of the island prior to its surprise entry into this year’s World Cup, they will be familiar with the gambling brands licensed here: the winners of this year’s Champions League, La Liga, Ligue 1, Premier League, Serie A and Scottish Premier League all have, or recently had, partnerships with Curaçao-licensed bookmakers. One of the lates...
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