As a companion to yesterday’s Bounces deep dive into 1xBet and its growing footprint in professional tennis—with sponsorship deals struck with the ITF’s Billie Jean King Cup, the ATP Challenger Tour, and the Dallas Open, I wanted to share with y’all a conversation I had while working on the story.
Ross Higgins, a researcher at Bellingcat, joined me to discuss his organization’s work—alongside investigation by Josimar—into the surreal, sad world of 1xBet’s warehouse webcam rings for sports.
Bellingcat, a collective of open source investigators, is best known for the work it does on things like war crimes, but 1xBet was murky and shady enough to capture its attention. As one Reddit commenter said under the post on my article: “A Sportsbook sketchy enough to get investigated by Bellingcat is the sketchiest thing I’ve ever heard of.”
What sorts of things did Higgins and his Bellingcat team find, and how? And why do all of these theoretically prestigious sports organizations who should have standards keep partnering with 1xBet?
“They like money, and 1xBet can give them money,” Higgins told me. “And secondly, they don’t feel accountable to anybody.”
