Saints Stuff

At least no rain is forecast...

 

How come we don't have a match this weekend?

Ah...the Carabao Cup final.

 

Think we were meant to play Spurs?

 

I'm trying to work out our missing fixture from the BBC website, only 6 are published and we have 7 games left.

Edit: Palace at home TBC on the OS

 

Wow 2 years ago already ......

 

Shane Long is and always will be an icon for Saints.

 

Is and will always be an icon for saints.

Edit, wrong post.

 

Or did it come off the crossbar?

 

Sportsbet.io........


HODL! English football’s hidden links to Bitcoin gambling

Joey D'Urso 3h ago

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While watching their team on TV during lockdown, fans of Southampton andArsenal may have noticed a peculiar word on the billboards around the pitch alongside the adverts for airlines and sportswear brands.

“HODL!” forms part of the advertising for Sportsbet.io, a company that this month signed a record-breaking deal with Southampton, paying £7.5 million a year for their logo to feature on the club’s shirts.

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The online gambling firm that pays for these adverts accepts payment in cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, something no UK-based bookmakers tend to do because the gambling regulator says it carries significant risks of money laundering and illegal activity.

For Sportsbet, though, the UK consumer is a sideshow. The company is more interested in using Premier League football as a billboard to attract users in countries such as China, which have tight restrictions on online gambling and where cryptocurrency is a useful way to skirt regulations.

“Cryptocurrency makes it easier to bypass any jurisdictional restrictions, or prohibitions, for online gambling,” says Matt Zarb-Cousin, the director of Clean Up Gambling.

Following multiple conversations with industry insiders and sports gambling experts, The Athletic can reveal:

• How Sportsbet’s “crypto gambling” model is hidden from UK football fans
• Why UK authorities think crypto gambling presents security and money-laundering risks
• The link between Watford’s shirts, Arsenal’s stadium and illegal Chinese gambling

What does ‘HODL!’ mean?

Cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, unlike legal tender — or “fiat currency”, from the Latin for “let it be done” — such as pounds or dollars, are decentralised and not underpinned by governments. Money can be sent between people without the need for intermediaries like banks, and anonymous transactions are verified using “blockchain” technology, which allows strangers to exchange money in the absence of an established financial intermediary.

To the technology’s advocates, it is a way of democratising finance and wrestling control back from corporations and the state. But its detractors argue it is chiefly useful for illegal activity, where buyers and sellers have a particular interest in remaining anonymous. In addition, the way Bitcoins are “mined” (enter circulation) requires huge computing power, meaning the technology is responsible for massive carbon emissions.

However, although Bitcoin was invented as an alternative currency to buy and sell goods and services, just like with dollars or pounds, to many of its advocates it is something entirely different. Bitcoin is increasingly used as a speculative asset, similar to stocks or commodities, which can be bought and sold at a profit or loss on online platforms.

Southampton’s sponsorship deal, for example, “includes the option for the club to be paid certain performance-based bonuses in Bitcoin at the end of each season, allowing the club the opportunity to take advantage of the new, high-growth currency if it feels it will bring significant future benefits”, the club’s official press release said.

In recent months the value of Bitcoin and many other cryptocurrencies have skyrocketed, meaning lots of people have banked a quick profit. But the currency’s value is hugely volatile — in early 2018, it collapsed by two-thirds and took almost three years to recover its previous high.

Nobody quite knows what Bitcoin will do next. Those wary of a crash may be quietly cashing out their gains, but the loudest voices on social media are those encouraging others to hold — or “HODL!”, based on a misspelling of the word, of which more later — with the belief Bitcoin will continue to go up and up “to the moon”.

Jokes and memes lie at the heart of the online cryptocurrency community. The Athletic first started enquiring about Sportsbet.io last October but multiple emails to them went unanswered. The company eventually replied on Twitter with a jokey GIF from the US version of sitcom The Office, which was promptly deleted after yet another follow-up email asking extensive questions about the company’s business practices.



Despite multiple attempts over several months, that GIF aside, the company did not respond to any of the issues raised in this article. The clubs mentioned did not wish to comment, either.

David Gerard, a cryptosceptic and author of Attack Of The 50 Foot Blockchain, says the lack of seriousness within the crypto community, combined with jargon and memes, is integral and explains the bizarre HODL! billboards.

He is bewildered that HODL! is now cropping up in Premier League football stadiums and explains the term’s origins lie in a “drunken typo” written by a Bitcoiner in an online forum several years ago.

“Why are they advertising the concept of Bitcoin, with Bitcoin jargon, that only Bitcoin people will understand?” he asks.

The answer lies far from a football stadium in Hampshire.

What is Sportsbet?

Southampton fans curious about the company pouring an eight-figure sum into their club might begin their search by looking up the web address on the front of their new home shirts.

From a UK computer, however, the address www.sportsbet.io does not work at all. Instead, it redirects to a completely different site, www.sportsbetio.uk, which is not run directly by Sportsbet itself but is “powered by TGP Europe Ltd”.

TGP Europe is a company based on the Isle of Man, licensed and regulated in Great Britain by the Gambling Commission, which also runs a host of other “white-label” websites which crop up on Premier League shirts. For example, the website for FUN88, a company that sponsors Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur, is also run by TGP Europe and is essentially identical to the Sportsbet site, apart from its colour scheme. That company has not responded to multiple requests for comment by The Athletic.

While it is possible to put on a bet in the UK via these white-label websites, the payment processing is done via the Isle of Man company. The Athleticrecently revealed how the UK Gambling Commission’s white-label arrangements allow situations where UK authorities and some football clubs have little idea about the full range of activities of some of the brands carried on shirts, many of which help to facilitate illegal online gambling in Asia.

These white-label websites such as TGP Europe are what UK-based fans see, but are not the main product being advertised.

That business is happening offshore, and the UK Gambling Commission itself has warned that insufficient checks are being carried out to guard against any potential money-laundering and criminal activity that might be facilitated by these arrangements.

What’s going on outside the UK?

Sportsbet’s UK-facing website says the company “is a superb online gaming operator that shows its premium status in the way in which it provides for its patrons”. It makes no mention of cryptocurrency at all.

However, the company’s Facebook page strikes a different note, saying it is “is the home of crypto sports betting online”.

Until last autumn, the company’s Facebook picture included Arsenal’s Cedric Soares brandishing a Bitcoin. A small Bitcoin logo can also be viewed on the front of Southampton’s shirts.

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The sportsbet.io website can only be viewed from outside the UK, where it looks very different.

On its non-UK homepage, the company calls itself the “home of crypto betting”, something which is not mentioned anywhere on its UK site. “Sportsbet.io offers a platform for all crypto users all over the world,” it says. “Other than Bitcoin, we also support other cryptocurrencies such as Litecoin, Ethereum, Tether, Tron, Ripple and Allsportscoin.”

There is more.

“Betting with crypto has never been easier with Sportsbet.io,” the site says. “You can buy and get Bitcoins and even convert them in your account to other types of cryptocurrency.”

The site also carries detailed explanations on how to buy cryptocurrency and use it to gamble.

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The site says Sportsbet.io is “owned and operated by mBet Solutions NV”, a company based on the Caribbean island of Curacao, where it is also “licensed and regulated”. Payment methods are handled by a company in Cyprus.

What is abundantly clear is that the UK-facing website has little relation to the other activities of Sportsbet.io, a company that is owned by the Estonia-based Coingaming Group.

So why hasn’t Sportsbet made this clear?

One gambling industry insider told The Athletic that, despite not being explicitly prohibited in UK law, cryptocurrencies are not accepted by UK bookmakers because the risks of breaching anti-money laundering laws are too high. The Proceeds of Crime Act imposes regulations on gambling businesses to keep crime, especially money-laundering, out of gambling.

“It’s not that you can’t (legally accept cryptocurrency), it’s just that it’s a total minefield and would be operationally incredibly complicated,” the insider said. “As a result, you can probably assume anyone taking Bitcoin payments in the UK is not able to put those customers under the same stringent levels of ‘Know Your Customer’ (KYC) checks.”

Betting and gambling companies regulated by the UK Gambling Commission have a responsibility to “know their customers inside out”, which can include checking bank statements to make sure a customer is not gambling with money they do not have.

Although it is possible to place bets using payment services such as Paypal or Skrill, which convert cryptocurrency to fiat currency, gambling using cryptocurrency directly is not possible on UK websites. The Gambling Commission’s website lists various potential problems with accepting crypto as payment, such as how hard it is to “adequately assess the source of funds” and ensure “the security of funds held”.

“The use case for crypto is evading regulation,” says cryptosceptic author Gerard, who speculates that people running cryptocurrency gambling sites “will have this great big pile of bitcoins that they want to sell for as much as possible and get real money”.

For gamblers themselves, using cryptocurrency to place bets also entails a double risk. “Crypto gambling is almost two gambles in one,” explains Clean Up Gambling’s Zarb-Cousin. “Firstly, as a wager on the event, and secondly on the value of the crypto itself, which is extremely volatile.”

So where are the Bitcoin gamblers?

A closer look at Sportsbet’s marketing provides a clue as to why a company would spend millions of pounds to advertise a product on English clubs’ football shirts that is not available via its UK website.

Many of the adverts on the billboards at grounds are in Chinese.

Here, at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium, the billboards say “Bitcoin + cryptocurrency betting platform”, and direct people to the Sportsbet app.

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Their English language adverts, meanwhile, simply give the URL —which redirects to the UK-facing page which does not mention cryptocurrency — and the word “HODL!”.

There is also Chinese writing on the chests of Watford’s shirts; the Championship club, which secured promotion back to the Premier League this weekend, has a long-running association with Sportsbet.

Watford announced in 2019 that the Bitcoin logo (₿) would appear on the players’ shirt sleeves “as part of an educational drive led by the innovative sports betting brand Sportsbet.io”, adding, “The logo is part of a wider campaign to improve awareness around Bitcoin and educate the public on the benefits of using cryptocurrencies.”

During Watford’s sensational defeat of title-bound Liverpool last February, adverts for the “Crypto Cup” were plastered all over their Vicarage Road home. A conference intended to take place at the stadium three months later, the Crypto Cup was eventually cancelled owing to the pandemic.

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The Chinese writing on these billboards and shirts demonstrates how the story leads back to that country.

Gambling is tightly regulated in China, and is only allowed via the state lottery or in casinos in the territory of Macau. China’s President Xi Jinping has made it a personal mission to clamp down on an industry that he deems to be “un-Chinese,” explains Professor Simon Chadwick, director of Eurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School.

Gambling, however, is deeply embedded in the country’s culture, and Premier League football is hugely popular there, meaning big potential profits for companies able to gain access to the Chinese market.

“These are offshore businesses where the platform is hosted offshore, but it is very clear that what they’re doing is trying to target Chinese customers,” says Chadwick. “The communication mechanism to make people aware of these sites is Premier League football.”

China’s stringent anti-gambling laws make it extremely difficult for consumers to place an online bet from their ordinary bank account in the way a UK football fan would — hence the interest in cryptocurrency.

“It’s hard to underestimate just how closely monetary flows into and out of China are monitored, so to be dealing with hard cash or cash from your online bank account, if you’re moving money from your bank account across international boundaries, you will be flagged,” explains Chadwick.

“The best-case scenario is you get told to stop doing it, the worst-case scenario you will be arrested. There are ways of engaging in gambling which circumvent these controls, and cryptocurrency is one of them.”

In the west, cryptocurrency is surging in popularity but is still chiefly the preserve of the young and technologically savvy.

However in China the technology is “really well known”, says Chadwick. “It’s arguably the most sophisticated digital environment in the world — it’s very common for Chinese people to effectively live their life online. The take-up of, and interest in, cryptocurrency is very high in China.”

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Watford have Sportsbet.io as their main shirt sponsor (Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images)
Just as cryptocurrency’s principles of anonymity and decentralisation appeal to those who dislike the power held by governments and banks, they also attract people attempting to circumvent strict gambling laws to put on a bet.

“Cryptocurrency isn’t traceable in the same way fiat currency is. You don’t need payment processors to deposit funds either, which governments can intercept if they’re servicing unregulated gambling sites,” says Zarb-Cousin of Clean Up Gambling. “Very often, Asian markets are their primary driver of growth, including countries where gambling is banned.

“The global appeal of the Premier League means gambling firms use sponsorship as a vehicle to access markets outside of the UK.”

What next?

It is important to make clear that no laws are being broken with these arrangements.

The UK government, though, is currently carrying out a review of the gambling sector that promises to look closely at the issue of football sponsorship, and “white labels” are likely to come under its microscope.

As the gambling industry changes at breakneck speed from a bricks-and-mortar business to an online one, spanning borders and currencies, these new complexities — and potential profit streams — will continue to crop up in football. The high-profile collapse of Football Index generated weeks of headlines recently after consumers lost tens of thousands of pounds overnight on a platform regulated by the UK Gambling Commission.

Overseas, companies will continue to use Premier League football shirts as billboards to advertise to consumers in countries with strict gambling rules — and to offer little in the way of resources for those struggling from gambling-related issues.

“When it comes to gambling on football shirts, we see as a public health issue… but in China there are gambling addicts too,” says Professor Chadwick. “It is a public health issue there as well.”

 

Hmmm.....not proud of our association with them, but they're prepared to pay a premium to advertise in the Premier League and 7.5mill a year is a lot of money to turn down, particularly in the current climate.

 

My understanding was that the money would be split between the football league clubs equally, not the PL teams?

 

As it should, tbh.

 

Le Tissier has been nominated for the PL Hall of Fame, and twelve year olds/people who know nothing about football, are losing their **** on Twitter about it.

You should all vote (and ignore the fact he's become a pillock for this one).

https://www.premierleague.com/hall-of-fame

 

Voted. Went for players who were about in the 90s.

Voters should be restricted to a one-player-from-one-team rule, to stop the Utd fans voting for six of their NINE nominees.

I have a feeling Tiss will get in the top 6, because fans of the big four won't want to vote for each other's players.

 

Done it. How many times can you vote?

 

Mike Channon, Steve Williams nor Ron Davies were there.