This article is the result of a collaboration with Josimar. You can find Josimar’s corresponding piece here.

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One of the world’s most controversial bookmakers takes bets on thousands of amateur sports events live-streamed to its website. The locations of the games are a secret. Bellingcat has geolocated sites in three countries where these matches are played.

Off-screen the young men change uniforms. Then they reappear, representing different teams, and do it all over again. The scene is replicated on the other side of the sport hall’s divider curtains. “Barcelona” beats “Man City”, “Chelsea” loses to “Tottenham”. 

In the final minutes of a 4:30am match, the goalkeeper for “Amsterdam” walks into an adjacent game to retrieve his stray ball. The schedule is relentless. Players compete in back-to-back football matches that run day and night. 

The games have one thing in common: they are all live-streamed to the website of 1xBet, a Cyprus-based bookmaker that is licensed in the Dutch Caribbean island of Curacao.

The locations of the games streamed to 1xBet are never disclosed by organisers, but Bellingcat has identified sports venues across Russia, Ukraine and Belarus that host these amateur tournaments. This investigation has also found that the gaming operation allowed punters to gamble on a game in which children as young as 14 were competing.

Odds on 1xBet

A controversial name in gambling, 1xBet is blacklisted in several countries but remains one of the largest online casinos in the world, with a reported turnover of billions of dollars. 

In 2020 Russian authorities issued an international arrest warrant for its three founders, Dmitry Kazorin, Roman Semiokhin and Sergey Karshkov. Investigators said in 2021 that the company made more than 63 billion rubles (US$655 million) in illegal gambling activities.

1xBet is prohibited from operating in Russia, was suspended in the UK, and has faced a criminal complaint in Morocco. Its parent company, 1XCorp N.V., was declared bankrupt in the Netherlands after failing to pay out on bets, and last year was put on Ukraine’s sanctions list over its ties to Russia.

Premier League clubs Chelsea, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur severed their deals with the bookmaker after a 2019 investigation by The Sunday Times found that it had accepted bets on cockfighting and promoted a “pornhub” casino.

But despite its numerous controversies, 1xBet has maintained partnerships with other professional clubs. It remains a sponsor of Paris Saint-Germain FC and earlier this year renewed its deal with FC Barcelona, making it the club’s official betting partner until 2029.

We asked both teams about their partnerships with 1xBet. FC Barcelona declined to comment. Paris Saint-Germain FC did not respond to questions.

Industrial Scale Games

Far away from the splendour of Camp Nou and Parc des Princes, visitors to 1xBet’s website can punt on a continuous stream of non-professional football matches. One of the most prominent sports on offer is “short football”. Similar to futsal, it involves two, three, four and five-a-side amateur teams playing 10 or 12 minute games on small pitches.

Critics have described amateur bookmaker leagues as a scourge on sport. Viktor Kravchenko, a Russian football blogger, said in a 2021 Instagram post that young footballers were recruited to play in shifts and claimed games were fixed.

Josimar has published an account from a young man who said he was paid in cash to work from 9am to 2pm playing football that was live-streamed to 1xBet.

A Bellingcat analysis of 1xBet’s website found that 1,297 games of short football were live-streamed during a 24 hour period in September. By comparison the Bundesliga, Premier League and La Liga play a combined 1,066 league games per season. Should these figures be indicative of 1xBet’s daily output, the number of amateur football matches broadcast to the gambling site each year would be almost half a million.  

And the model has been replicated on an industrial scale. 1xBet streams videos from various locations hosting other non-professional tournaments ranging from basketball, volleyball and floorball to ice hockey, tennis, table tennis. Games are played in marquee warehouses and converted arenas that look like sets from the television series Squid Game.

A bench soccer match filmed from overhead shows rivals kicking a ball around small mesh cages. In these clips below, the player with the tattoo on his left forearm and wearing grey shoes represents multiple teams, often in back-to-back games. 

Subsoccer, a Finnish company that produces bench football products, said it did not make or supply the equipment in the 1xBet streams and that the use of its trademark and logo in this context was a violation. “The content you sent is not related to us in any way,” a Subsoccer spokesperson said. “We have not granted any rights to them regarding our products, trademarks, or other brand elements. The games shown in the images are illegal copies of our patented product and infringe on the patent granted to us.”

The online bookmaker takes bets on all these events – as well as eSports, casino, world politics and the weather – 24 hours a day. The estimated number of visits to 1xBet averages more than five million a month, according to SimilarWeb, a data firm that tracks web traffic. But 1xBet’s global footprint is far larger. Its mirror websites that are accessible in other jurisdictions record millions more visits.

The videos streamed to 1xBet are facilitated by third party companies. On its website, one Cyprus-registered firm boasts that it provides 15,000 live amateur events a month – which it credits to increasing engagement with “compulsive bettors”. Another company says it offers live-streams from “anywhere in the world”, including the “school playground”. A third firm assures its bookmaker clients of the security measures it takes, saying players are “regularly” polygraph tested to ensure games are not fixed.

Bellingcat requested an interview with 1xBet but did not receive a response. Multiple calls and questions sent by email were not returned. We also asked the bookmaker why the profile picture for its spokesman, “Alex Sommers”, was that of a CNN journalist, but did not receive a reply (CNN provided the original headshot to Bellingcat and said neither the company nor its reporter had been aware that the photograph was being used in this way).

Finding the Venues

Bellingcat examined hundreds of videos broadcast to 1xBet. We looked for visual clues to help identify players, leagues and venues. The matches typically feature obscure or unknown teams, which are sometimes named after prestigious clubs or national squads. Some leagues in which these teams play have their own websites containing player profiles, whose names were cross-checked on social media to help narrow down the search to specific countries. To pinpoint the facilities, we looked for distinctive architectural features, banners and signs in the sports arenas. We used reverse image searches and user-generated content to verify the locations.

Children’s Football School

Cutaways in videos of multiple short football games provide a clear view of signs and logos that made it possible to trace this venue to a children’s football school in the Russian city of Bryansk.

In promotional videos played before the football games start, a Russian language advertisement for Ikea delivery is visible from two different angles, hinting at the venue’s potential location.

Using a still from one of these promo videos, a reverse image search on Yandex returned a number of results, including a webpage reporting the outcome of a children’s football match. The webpage, on a site belonging to the Alexander Stepin Football School in Bryansk, included four photographs of young children in a sports arena. Key features in the images (the roller door, windows, scoreboard, pitch markings and branding) confirm that the location is the same.

According to its website, the school is partnered with President Vladimir Putin’s ruling party United Russia and the country’s widely sanctioned energy supplier, Gazprom. 1xBet is the subject of a blanket ban in Russia following a criminal investigation into its three founders.

In some of the photos featured on the Alexander Stepin Football School’s VK profile, children are shown perusing militaria and posing with rifles in the same arena the 1xBet games are streamed from. 

Sometimes the worlds of junior football and online gambling collide, as seen during this impromptu pitch invasion by a young child. This footage was captured during a live-stream to 1xBet’s website, minutes after a football game finished on a Wednesday afternoon in September.

The children’s football school also hosts outdoor games streamed to 1xBet, which take place on two adjacent fenced-off pitches to the west of the venue. We identified the first pitch, seen below, by translating the large sign on the red wall and comparing the image to posts on the football school’s VK profile.

The Alexander Stepin Football School did not respond to Bellingcat.

Teenage Floorball

Almost 1,700 km from Bryansk, families sit on the sidelines of a floorball game on Russia’s northwest coast, watching as Typhoon faces off against SPB United in the women’s league. A banner at the event and the logo in the corner of the video confirm the match is taking place under the auspices of the National Floorball Federation of Russia. A commentator calls the game, which is also being live-streamed to 1xBet.

We confirmed that this game took place at the Physical Culture and Recreation Complex Zvezdochka in Severodvinsk through a local news report about the venue’s opening, an accompanying video and social media posts.  

The National Floorball Federation of Russia’s website displays player profiles, which show that the average age of girls on one of the teams was just under 16. A cross-check of the names and jersey numbers visible in the live-stream revealed that girls aged 14 and 15 were competing in this game. It is unclear whether the children or their parents were aware the match was being broadcast to a gambling website.

The complex and the National Floorball Federation of Russia did not respond to Bellingcat.

Sports and Weapons Training

In 2018, Cristiano Ronaldo led Portugal in the World Cup against Iran in the purpose-built Mordovia Arena, a 40,000 seat stadium in the Russian city of Saransk. Russia was banned from participating in the competition in 2022 after its invasion of Ukraine, but football is still played regularly at the nearby Mordovia Sports Complex.

Here, teams with names such as “Audit” and “Policy” compete in the Student League, five-a-side football matches live-streamed to 1xBet. While the league has a website, there is no information about the venue where the games are held. Bellingcat located this venue by searching through Yandex images of sports complexes in Saransk.

Photographs posted to the Mordovia Sports Complex VK profile confirm the location of the venue, which is also used for weapons training workshops and tactical medicine classes.

The multipurpose complex also hosts the IPBL Space Division, a basketball league similarly played in empty arenas and broadcast live to 1xBet.

The Mordovia Sports Complex did not respond to Bellingcat.

Hoops From a War Zone

Basketball is also streamed from an unexpected location: Ukraine. 1xBet was banned from operating in Ukraine after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. The Svoi Arena is located in Kyiv, a kilometre from where a kindergarten caught fire after being struck by a Russian Shahed drone attack in November 2023. Despite the ongoing war, basketball in Ukraine was streamed to gamblers on the Russian-founded betting site as recently as last month.

The Svoi Arena said it was “not aware of cooperation with 1xBet” and did not respond to further questions. 

Tennis in Belarus

1xBet’s gaming operation is blocked in Belarus but the site continues to live-stream games from the former Soviet nation. In Minsk, the Daily Aqua Tour pits tennis players against each other under the canopy of the Avante Club. Images posted to social media show the same venue that appears in the 1xBet streams.

The Avante Club did not respond to Bellingcat.

Playing to an Empty Stadium

In the Belarusian city of Mogilev, 80 km from the Russian border, basketballers playing in the Belarus Sky League take to the court. The expansive arena at the Mogilev Regional Olympic Reserve Centre can hold up to 1,500 spectators, but no one was in the stands when the “Cheetahs” took on the “Piranhas” last month.

This arena hosts a catalogue of sporting events but its website makes no mention of the Belarus Sky League. We confirmed its location through reverse image searches and social media posts.

The Mogilev Regional Olympic Reserve Centre did not respond to Bellingcat.

Streams to Slots

Yield Sec, a firm that monitors online gambling and streaming marketplaces, said 1xBet’s “love affair” with live-streaming increased during the pandemic, when major sporting events were cancelled. But chief executive Ismail Vali said the company’s analytics show the volume of betting and revenue generated from 1xBet’s amateur sports streams is minimal. 

The objective, Vali said, was to “engage, motivate, and migrate” audiences using “any content available, particularly content that can grab attention and engagement from social and chat posts”. Once on the platform, he said the aim is to cross-sell punters to higher-value gambling products, such as big-ticket live sport events, slots and casino games.

“There’s not much traffic on those pages in terms of people who stay there and transact in volume – nobody’s on Ukrainian children’s basketball for 35 minutes and placing high value bets with any frequency,” Vali said. 

“The big play here is always to get the customers to casino because the profit margin there is far higher. The average customer on sports betting will produce a single digit profit margin: sports – legal and illegal – runs to around a 9 to 10 per cent profit margin. Casino, however, can run far higher – as much as a 50 per cent profit margin depending on product and gameplay.”

Vali said 1xBet uses “mirrors and redirects” to facilitate the availability of its online gambling platforms in countries where its main URL or app has been blocked or is unlicensed, and drives much of its traffic from illegal streaming. Pirated movies, television shows and live sporting events have become a “massive recruitment route” for the bookmaker, he said.

“We look at illegal streaming every day for different companies and we find that 1xBet is the leading advertiser upon illegally sponsored streamed content – content that is effectively stolen from the rights owners and offered ‘for free’ to the audience. Tyson Fury fights, for example, the latest Hollywood movies, or TV shows like Bridgerton, they’ll often have the 1xBet logo and URL embedded in them throughout the stream.”

1xBet is the largest of dozens of what Vali described as “international legacy illegal gambling operators”. He said: “1xBet is the most penetrated brand, the most available brand, the most talked about brand on the internet in gambling. Their scale is in the tens of billions in terms of revenues.”

He added that these gambling operators had become “masters at manipulating audience behaviour” and that their strategies revolved around profitability, with no regard for consumer safety, regulation or taxation. “When crime makes money it doesn’t invest it in 401(k)’s or pensions, it doesn’t invest it in the community,” he said. “Crime just invests in more crime.”

A Yield Sec report published earlier this month recorded an unprecedented trend whereby “illegal operators” voluntarily restricted their gambling operations in various jurisdictions immediately after the UEFA European Championships and the Copa America. The company said there was only one reason to explain this: the first round of licence applications to legally operate online gaming and betting in Brazil closed a month later.

The report said these operators – in the hope of presenting “the best possible licence application face to the Brazilian authorities” – were denying themselves illegal revenue from multiple marketplaces, mostly in Europe. 

“Their departure, whether temporary or permanent … will achieve one immediate outcome in Europe: the rise of dozens, if not hundreds, of new, upstart illegal operators entering and looking to fill the vacuum that has clearly been created by the departure of leading illegal operators. Brazil’s benefit could become Europe’s headache – for now, there is clearly blood in the water across Europe’s online gambling marketplaces.”

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Ross Higgins, Connor Plunkett, Logan Williams, Aiganysh Aidarbekova, Galen Reich, Katherine de Tolly and Tristan Lee contributed to this article.

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