M.T. Andersson published the results of the analysis of satellite images, which testify to the large-scale movement of Russian warships.
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The online bookmaker 1xBet, known for numerous scandals, broadcasts thousands of amateur sports events on its website. The platform features football matches, basketball, tennis, hockey and other sports, usually in half-empty halls. It turned out that sports events are broadcast from several countries, including Russia and Belarus. The use of children’s and youth competitions without the knowledge of parents for betting adds to the controversy of 1xBet’s activity.
Scandalous in the field of gambling, the 1xBet company was blacklisted in a number of countries, but continues to be one of the largest online casinos in the world with a turnover of billions of dollars.
In 2020, the Russian authorities issued an international arrest warrant for the company’s three founders: Dmytro Kazorin, Roman Semyokhin, and Sergey Karshkov. In 2021, investigators reported that the company earned more than 63 billion rubles (approximately $655 million) from illegal gambling activities.
Far from the luxury of the Camp Nou and Parc des Princes stadiums, visitors to the 1xBet website can watch non-professional football matches without interruption. One of the most popular formats has become “short football”. Similar to futsal, this sport involves matches between amateur teams of two, three, four or five players who play for 10-12 minutes on small pitches.
Critics consider amateur leagues associated with bookmaking harmful to the sport. In 2021, Russian football blogger Viktor Kravchenko wrote on Instagram that young players were recruited on a rotating basis and that the matches were specially organized.
Yosimar published the testimony of a young man who was paid in cash to play soccer from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., broadcast live on 1xBet.
An analysis of the 1xBet website showed that 1,297 short football matches were broadcast in 24 hours in September. In comparison, Bundesliga, Premier League and La Liga teams play a combined 1,066 matches throughout the season. If this number of matches continued every day, then 1xBet could broadcast almost half a million amateur football games per year.
This model is reproduced on a large scale. 1xBet broadcasts videos of various non-professional tournaments, including basketball, volleyball, floorball, hockey, tennis and table tennis. The games are held in warehouses or converted halls, which look like the scenery from the TV series “Squid Game”.
In videos of soccer matches shot from above, players can be seen moving around small fields with nets. In some videos, one of the players, with a tattoo on his left forearm and wearing gray shoes, plays for several teams, often playing one-on-one.
Players compete in 1-on-1 sub-soccer games. Between September 24 and 25, 80 such matches were broadcast on the 1xBet platform. Source: 1xBet.
Subsoccer, a Finnish bench soccer equipment manufacturer, said it did not supply its equipment for broadcasts to 1xBet and considers the use of its trademark and logo in this context an infringement. “The content you submitted is in no way related to our company,” a Subsoccer representative noted. “We did not grant them any rights to our products, trademarks or other brand elements. The games shown in the images are illegal copies of our proprietary product and infringe our patent.”
The online bookmaker accepts bets on these events, as well as on eSports, casino, world politics and even weather phenomena – 24 hours a day. According to SimilarWeb, which analyzes web traffic, the average monthly number of visits to 1xBet exceeds five million. However, the true global presence of 1xBet is even greater thanks to the mirror sites available in different jurisdictions, which also register millions of visitors.
Video content on 1xBet is provided by third-party companies. One such firm, registered in Cyprus, claims to provide 15,000 amateur streams each month, facilitating interaction with “engaged players”. Another company offers broadcasts “from anywhere in the world,” including “school playgrounds.” Another firm assures bookmakers of the security measures in place, noting that players are “regularly” polygraphed to prevent match-fixing.
1xBet did not respond to requests for an interview. Repeated calls and email inquiries went unanswered. We also asked the company about the use of its spokesperson Alex Sommers’ profile photo, which turned out to be a photo of a CNN reporter, but did not receive a response.
Hundreds of videos broadcast on 1xBet were reviewed in order to find visual clues to identify players, leagues and venues. The matches usually involved little-known or unknown teams, sometimes using the names of well-known clubs or national teams. Some of these leagues have their own websites with player profiles whose names are verified through social media, helping to narrow down the search to specific countries. To accurately determine the venues, we paid attention to characteristic architectural details, banners and signs in sports arenas. Also used reverse image search and user-generated content to verify location.
Video clips of several short football games clearly show the signs and logos that have helped track down the venue of the children’s football school in the Russian city of Bryansk.
In Bryansk, the facility, which can be divided by curtains, hosts a large number of football matches. Source: 1xBet.
Before the start of the games, a Russian-language Ikea delivery advertisement can be seen in the commercials, shot from different angles, indicating a possible venue for the matches.
Using a frame from one of the promos, a reverse image search on Yandex yielded several results, including a web page with the results of a children’s soccer match. This page on the Oleksandr Stepin football school website in Bryansk contained four photos of children in the sports arena. Characteristic elements in the images, such as blinds, windows, scoreboards, field markings and branding, confirm that this is the same place.
Oleksandr Styopin’s football school in Bryansk cooperates with the United Russia party and Gazprom, which is under sanctions. 1xBet is banned in Russia after a criminal investigation against its three founders.
In the photos from the school’s VKontakte profile, children are depicted with military equipment and rifles in the same arena where 1xBet games are broadcast.
According to its website, the school works with President Putin’s ruling United Russia party and the sanctioned company Gazprom. 1xBet is subject to a complete ban in Russia following a criminal investigation into its three founders.
In some photos presented on the profile of Oleksandr Stepin Football School in VK, children are depicted looking at the military and posing with rifles in the same arena from which 1xBet games are broadcast.
Sometimes the worlds of junior soccer and online gambling collide, as seen in this impromptu pitch invasion by a young kid. This footage was taken during a live broadcast on the 1xBet website a few minutes after the end of a football match on a Wednesday afternoon in September.
The child runs out onto the field, where the games are regularly broadcast. Source: 1xBet
On the territory of the children’s football school, broadcasts of outdoor games for the 1xBet platform are also held, which take place on two adjacent, fenced fields to the west of the main field.
We identified the first of these fields by translating the large inscription on the red wall, as well as comparing this image with the photos published on Oleksandr Stepin’s football school profile in VK.
Oleksandr Stepin Football School did not respond.
In 2018, Cristiano Ronaldo led Portugal to a World Cup match against Iran at the purpose-built Mordovia Arena in Saransk, a 40,000-seater stadium. In 2022, Russia was banned from the competition due to the invasion of Ukraine, but football continues to be played at the nearby Mordovia sports complex.
There, teams from the student league, such as “Audit” and “Politics”, compete in mini-football matches broadcast on 1xBet. Although the league has a website, it lacks information on the exact location of the games. This place was found by searching images of Saransk sports complexes on Yandex.
Photos published on the profile of the VC of the Mordovsky sports complex confirm the location of the site, which also hosts weapons training and tactical medicine classes.
The multi-purpose complex also hosts the IPBL Space Division, a basketball league that also plays in empty arenas and is broadcast live on 1xBet.
The Mordovian sports complex did not provide an answer.
Sky League basketball matches are held in the Belarusian city of Mogilev, located 80 km from the border with Russia. The Mogilev Regional Olympic Reserve’s large arena, which holds up to 1,500 spectators, remained empty last month when the Cheetahs played the Piranhas.
This live stream from September shows the Cheetahs playing the Piranhas in an empty stadium. Source: 1xBet
This arena has a directory of sporting events, but the website does not mention the Belarusian Sky League. We confirmed his location through reverse image searches and social media posts.
The Mogilev Regional Center of the Olympic Reserve did not respond.
Yield Sec, a company specializing in monitoring online gambling and streaming markets, noted that 1xBet significantly increased the number of live broadcasts during the pandemic, when major sporting events were canceled. However, the CEO of Yield Sec, Ismail Vali, said that the analysis shows that the bet volumes and revenues from amateur sports broadcasts on 1xBet are minimal.
According to Vali, the goal was to “engage, motivate and move” the audience with “any content available, especially content that can attract attention and drive discussion on social networks and chats.” Once on the platform, the company aims to cross-sell more profitable gambling products to users, such as major sporting events, slots and casino games.
“There is little traffic on these pages from users who stay for a long time and actively place large bets – hardly anyone watches Ukrainian children’s basketball for more than 35 minutes and often bets on significant amounts,” Vali noted.
“The main goal is always to attract customers to the casino, because the rate of return is much higher there. A typical sports betting customer provides a single-digit profit percentage – around 9-10%, while casinos can give up to 50% depending on the product and type of game.”
Vali added that 1xBet uses “mirror sites and redirects” to provide access to its platforms in countries where the main site is blocked or unlicensed, and a significant portion of traffic is routed through illegal streams. Pirated movies, shows and live sports have become, he says, “a key engagement channel” for the company.
“We analyze illegal broadcasts for various clients every day and found that 1xBet is one of the main advertisers on platforms with pirated content – material that is actually stolen from the rights holders and offered to the audience for free. For example, broadcasts of Tyson Fury fights, the latest Hollywood movies or shows such as “Bridgerton” often contain the 1xBet logo and URL embedded throughout the entire viewing experience.
A Yield Sec report published earlier this month noted a unique trend: “illegal operators” voluntarily curtailed operations in various jurisdictions immediately following the conclusion of the UEFA European Championship and Copa America. The company explains this by the fact that the first stage of submitting applications for licenses for the legal management of online games and betting in Brazil should have ended in a month.
The document states that these operators, in an effort to present the “best possible image” to the Brazilian authorities, deliberately refused income from illegal sources in many markets, mainly European.
“Their exit, whether temporary or permanent, will have an immediate effect in Europe: the emergence of numerous new illegal start-up operators seeking to occupy the niche left by the departure of the leading illegal players. What could be a boon for Brazil is turning into a problem for Europe, where the “smell of blood” is clearly felt in the online gambling market.
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