Leak Exposes Owners Of Thousands Of Offshore Casinos
A German hacker has released tens of thousands of previously confidential documents from Curacao's gambling regulator in what has been labelled the Casino Secrets leak, exposing the ownership behind thousands of unregulated gambling sites, The Guardian reported.
Curacao licenses more than 8,000 online casinos, roughly one for every 20 residents of the Caribbean territory, and many of those sites are used by bettors outside any licensed market.
Gaming Compliance International estimates the global illicit gambling market saw bets worth 5.9 trillion dollars in 2025, a figure that has climbed steadily in recent years. A 2024 report from the UK Betting and Gaming Council suggested 2.7 billion pounds is staked annually on illegal, unregulated betting sites in Britain alone, even though UK-licensed online casinos already report 25.7 million active accounts.
Without a licence from the Gambling Commission, it is illegal for online gambling sites to offer their services in England, Scotland and Wales. That regime enforces anti-money laundering checks, stake limits and responsible-gambling rules that unlicensed offshore operators do not have to follow.
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Why Bettors End Up There Anyway
Rob Davies, a Guardian reporter and author of Jackpot: How Gambling Conquered Britain, said bettors who have self-excluded from regulated sites, high rollers seeking less oversight, and customers wanting to bet with cryptocurrency, which is not legal on licensed UK sites, are among those who end up on offshore platforms.
Some non-UK licensed casinos are supposed to block access to British visitors, but many simply do not enforce that block, and users can bypass it with a basic VPN.
Sponsorship deals also give unlicensed operators a route to UK visibility despite being unable to run advertising directly: several Premier League clubs carry shirt or kit sponsorships from offshore gambling brands, a practice that remains legal even as regulators face calls to close the loophole.
How The Leak Happened
The Curacao files were accessed by a 31-year-old German hacker, Lilith Wittmann, who told The Guardian it took her only six hours to find a vulnerability that let her monitor the Curacao Gaming Control Board in real time for nine months afterward.
She said the data can show who is applying for licences and who may be profiting from illegal gambling, and that some operators' financial disclosures amount to little more than a handwritten note citing cryptocurrency investments as their source of funds.
The UK's Office for Budget Responsibility estimates betting and casino duties will raise 4 billion pounds in 2025/26, on top of the 40% Remote Gaming Duty that licensed operators pay HMRC on their stake profits.
Unlicensed offshore casinos avoid both obligations entirely, which is part of why Rob Davies says the exploitation of vulnerable bettors, rather than lost tax revenue alone, is the bigger concern from his reporting: unlicensed sites have in some cases simply refused to pay out winnings, leaving customers with no legal recourse.
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