Regulation

Gambling’s Insider Problem Goes Beyond Match-Fixing

By iGaming Review · Published 27 October 2026

Recent cases involving election bets, lottery systems and basketball raise a shared question for gambling businesses: can their controls identify how a bettor acquired an unfair advantage?

Analysis · Research current to 25 October 2026

On 23 October, three people received suspended prison sentences for cheating through bets on the date of Britain’s 2024 general election. The Gambling Commission said they had used confidential information before the election was announced. The case concerned advance knowledge of a political decision; it did not depend on anyone manipulating a sporting contest. ¹

That distinction matters for an industry whose integrity discussions often centre on match-fixing. Recent developments in Italy, Nevada and Ontario illustrate other questions: who can see information that customers cannot, who can influence the event being bet on, and what happens when an operator fails to recognise suspicious activity?

These cases involve different laws and evidential stages. Together, they offer a useful way to examine controls across gambling products. They do not establish a rise in insider offending: the latest headlines largely concern proceedings arising from older events.

When knowing is enough

In the British case, former Conservative campaigning director Anthony Lee obtained information through confidential discussions about the election’s timing. He used it to bet and passed it to his wife, Laura Lee. Amy Hind also placed bets after receiving confidential information. All three pleaded guilty to cheating under section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005. ¹

For an operator, identifying the customer would only answer part of the question. The relevant risk was the customer’s relationship to information that had not reached the public.

This is not a reason to treat every successful bettor as suspicious. Research, judgement and publicly available data can legitimately produce an advantage. An integrity review needs to distinguish those advantages from misuse of confidential access, applying the rules governing the particular market. An unusual win can justify scrutiny; it cannot, by itself, establish wrongdoing.

Access inside the system

Italy’s latest scratchcard development concerns a precautionary seizure of assets worth more than €25 million in proceedings before the Lazio regional section of Italy’s Court of Auditors. According to the Guardia di Finanza account published by Jamma on 23 October, five former concessionaire employees allegedly used system credentials to identify four winning tickets, which relatives and friends then bought. The concessionaire itself is described as uninvolved in the alleged conduct. ²

The distinction between identifying a winning ticket and changing the game’s outcome is essential. The allegation concerns access to concealed information about existing tickets. The asset seizure is a protective measure pending proceedings, rather than a conviction or final confiscation. Earlier reporting of the four-ticket scheme dates the purchases to 2015–2019. ²³

The operational question is therefore about the information an employee can reach. Where a role requires access to sensitive data, an operator should be able to explain why that access is necessary, how its use is reviewed and who can challenge an apparently legitimate request. Checking retail purchases alone would address a different part of the risk.

The risk crosses company boundaries

The Italian case also raises a question beyond one company’s perimeter: what can a customer-facing operator see when sensitive information sits with a supplier? Where trading, data feeds or game systems are outsourced, the review should follow access rights across the B2B chain.

In Great Britain, the Gambling Commission makes licensees responsible for contracted third parties involved in licensed activities and requires contracts to support information sharing and regulatory compliance. ⁸ For procurement and risk teams, that means testing whether agreements provide access to relevant logs, prompt incident notifications and investigation support, including where subcontractors are involved. A general assurance that a supplier’s systems are secure does not answer who can obtain evidence or act on it.

When a participant can change the result

The Nevada prosecution involves allegations of deliberate interference with performance. ESPN reported on 21 October that former college player Steven Vasquez and former DraftKings sports trader Matthew J. Martin had been arrested in September and charged over an alleged prop-bet scheme involving a 2025 Fresno State game. An arrest warrant had also been issued for former player Mykell Robinson. Martin and Vasquez pleaded not guilty, according to their lawyers. ⁴

DraftKings told ESPN that the alleged activity did not take place on its platform. The company also said the former employees involved did not have responsibility for setting college basketball odds. Their employment must not be mistaken for evidence that they manipulated DraftKings’ prices or systems. ⁴

There is also evidence of detection working. In its September 2025 account of related disciplinary findings, the NCAA said its investigation began after notifications from Fresno State and a betting integrity monitor. Those sporting findings are separate from the criminal charges. ⁵

The case raises questions about both personal relationships and the design of betting products. A market on one participant’s statistics creates a different exposure from a market on a whole competition. Product teams need to assess who can materially influence the specified outcome and whether available monitoring can identify that influence.

AI can help identify patterns that warrant investigation. Sportradar says its fraud-detection system uses machine learning to analyse extensive betting datasets in real time. ⁹ An operator might, for example, investigate a cluster of recently opened accounts placing unusually large, coordinated bets on a narrow market. That hypothetical pattern would be a starting point for review, not proof that the customers were linked to an employee or possessed inside information. Data quality, human assessment and a documented escalation process remain central to interpreting the signal.

The operator’s response is part of the case

Ontario provides a concrete example of consequences for the business handling the wagers. On 20 October, the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario announced a settlement under which PointsBet Canada agreed to a two-day suspension of its Ontario gaming site and an independent audit. The auditor and methodology require AGCO approval, and corrective measures must be independently validated. ⁶

The dispute concerned alleged failures to detect and report suspicious betting linked to Jontay Porter. PointsBet had challenged a proposed five-day suspension, attributing its inaccurate reporting to human error and denying deliberate concealment. The settlement resolves that proceeding; it should not be presented as a court finding proving every allegation. ⁷

For management, the audit requirement makes the response to a problem as relevant as the initial alert. An operator needs to retrieve reliable records, explain what it reviewed and demonstrate that corrective work has been completed. A monitoring system’s value depends partly on what happens after it produces a signal.

Where integrity and AML overlap

Integrity monitoring can also expose questions about the money behind a bet. The Gambling Commission’s 2026 assessment identifies linked accounts, inadequate source-of-funds scrutiny and suspicious wagering on obscure or potentially compromised events as remote-betting money-laundering risks. ¹⁰ An insider-betting alert does not automatically establish money laundering; the applicable AML assessment and reporting duties need separate consideration.

Financial consequences are real. In a separate compliance case, the Commission’s £650,000 Videoslots penalty in November 2025 covered AML and social-responsibility breaches, including delayed source-of-funds checks and excessive reliance on automated risk scoring. ¹¹ This was not an insider-betting finding. The management lesson is to connect integrity, payments and compliance reviews while respecting their different legal tests.

Controls that follow the source of the advantage

A useful review would start with the product and trace the information around it. Which facts are confidential? Who has access through employment, a supplier or participation in the underlying event? Who can change the outcome? These questions identify different responsibilities for security, trading and compliance teams.

Staff betting policies and conflict declarations can make restrictions explicit. Access reviews can test whether sensitive information is available more widely than a role requires. Neither measure removes the need to examine suspicious transactions and escalate concerns through a defined process. Information-sharing must also respect the applicable legal and data-protection requirements.

The commercial decision comes when a product’s exposure exceeds what the business can reasonably monitor. Management then needs to consider changes to the market, its limits or its availability, with a recorded explanation of the decision. More alerts are of limited use if nobody owns the resulting judgement.

The practical test is whether a business can reconstruct a suspicious episode across company boundaries: what information was available, who could use it, which signals appeared and what action followed. That requires access to supplier-held evidence as well as the operator’s own records, with clear responsibility for acting on both. The recent cases give gambling executives specific reasons to ask for that evidence before the next investigation requires it.