Inside the Shadow World of High-Rolling Professional Gambling
A court filing has revealed that Tony Bloom's gambling syndicate allegedly used George Cottrell as a front, transferring control of betting accounts through him. Cottrell is connected to Nigel Farage, and an associate claims that Bloom's group would receive approximately 33% of the winnings generated from activity on Cottrell's account. The estimated profits from this arrangement are around $250 million (£187 million).
This case exposes a shadow gambling sector where betting accounts are routinely bought and sold via messaging apps, and offshore sites operate to avoid UK tax and anti-money laundering (AML) checks. In the licensed UK market, bookmakers employ stake factoring to limit bets from winning customers; those who consistently win can have their maximum stakes reduced to zero, a practice known as "being chinned."
Punters circumvent these restrictions by buying or renting accounts from losing customers, often referred to as beards or mules, or by piggy-backing on third-party accounts. The market for high-roller accounts functions like a wild west, with VIP accounts that have a history of large bets being worth tens of thousands of pounds.
An unregulated offshore gambling market is estimated to be around £1 billion. This market is accessible through virtual private networks (VPNs) and often involves cryptocurrency transactions. Some platforms are invite-only, designed for "whales"—high-stake gamblers—and do not pay UK duties.
Regulators have acknowledged their limited oversight of this ecosystem. Nevertheless, mainstream licensed bookmakers continue to dominate the UK market, with total takings of about £12.5 billion last year among licensed firms.
