SIS Black Market Deal With Santeda Sparks Rift With Shareholder Entain
Racing data supplier SIS signed a commercial deal with black-market bookmaker Santeda in 2022 that may still have been in force as recently as this year, prompting Entain to raise formal concerns with the company, according to Racing Post on October 1, 2026.
SIS, whose shareholders include several of the UK's largest licensed bookmakers, provides live racing and esports feeds used across the regulated betting industry.
Who Owns SIS?
SIS is 23.4% owned by Entain, the owner of Ladbrokes and Coral, 19.5% owned by Evoke, the owner of William Hill, and 13.5% collectively owned by Betfred and The Tote, both controlled by Fred Done.
The remaining shares are held by financial investors Caledonia and Catalyst Media Group.
Because several of SIS's licensed bookmaker owners are also its customers, the company maintains an independent governance structure, with a separate board overseeing its media rights deals, so that shareholder-operators are not automatically parties to its day-to-day commercial arrangements.
That structure is designed to satisfy UK competition law, which restricts how much visibility competing bookmaker-shareholders can have into one another's commercial terms with a shared supplier.
Entain Raises Concerns Over Santeda Contract
An Entain spokesperson told Racing Post: "Entain, as a minority shareholder and to ensure compliance with competition law, is not a party to the commercial or customer arrangements SIS decides to strike. Now that this relationship has come to light, we take it very seriously and have raised our concerns to SIS."
The spokesperson added: "Entain's position on illegal gambling is clear and unchanged: we support robust enforcement against unlicensed operators."
Entain has been among the most vocal UK operators calling for tougher action against unlicensed offshore brands that compete with UK betting sites for customers.
What Happens Next
SIS's independent governance structure is specifically designed to keep shareholder-operators separate from its commercial dealings, meaning Entain, Evoke, and the Betfred/Tote group are not automatically informed of or able to veto contracts SIS strikes with third parties.
That same structure now puts fresh pressure on SIS to explain how a supplier trusted by the licensed UK racing and betting industry came to hold a revenue-sharing contract with a network supplying unlicensed brands.
Licensed UK bookmakers have spent much of 2026 pushing regulators and payment providers to clamp down harder on black-market operators, arguing that unlicensed sites undercut consumer protections built into the regulated market.
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A UK-licensed supplier's own commercial links to that same black market, even indirectly through a shareholding structure designed to keep owners at arm's length, is likely to sharpen scrutiny of how racing data and media rights deals are vetted across the industry.
SIS has operated as a core supplier to the UK racing and betting industry for decades, distributing live pictures and data from racecourses to licensed bookmakers' shops and apps, as well as to international customers.
Its ownership structure, split between competing bookmaker shareholders and financial investors, was designed to allow rival operators to jointly fund shared infrastructure without breaching competition rules, a model now under closer scrutiny following the Santeda disclosure.
