The data companies that collect and sell information from sport to gambling operators, enabling them to offer bets, don’t check whether they are legitimate or licensed.
By Andy Brown, with assistance from Philippe Auclair, Jack Kerr and Steve Menary
The data companies that collect and sell information from sport to gambling operators, enabling them to offer bets, don’t check whether they are legitimate or licensed. We know this because we created Fanzone.bet, an unlicensed, fake, gambling operator with fictional executives, and agreed deals with data suppliers.
We spoke to over ten companies that supply sporting data to gambling operators. Two of those contacted asked us if we were licensed, and four agreed deals to supply us with data on amateur, low level, and youth football. Only one of those four asked us for proof of a licence, yet was happy to agree a deal without us providing it.
Some of the companies we dealt with promise to protect the integrity of sport by collecting data in order to monitor games for signs of match-fixing. Amazingly, they were also prepared to sell data on amateur, low level, and youth football to us, an unlicensed gambling operator.
Poorly regulated and unlicensed operators typically do not cooperate with sporting and legal authorities. Fixers place bets on low level games with these operators to avoid detection. Fanzone.bet was unlicensed and had no intention of passing any information about such bets on to authorities.
One company was happy to agree a deal with Fanzone.bet to supply live, in-play data, including on youth football. However later, as j...
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