How Bellingham and Fernandes fell victim to deepfake betting scam

Illegal online casinos are producing bogus stories and videos to deceive customers

- Philippe Auclair

Respect of copyright law has never ranked highly in the list of priorities for unlicensed sports betting operators.

Respect of copyright law has never ranked highly in the list of priorities for unlicensed sports betting operators. Crests of famous clubs and photographs of star players are routinely used to promote brands that could not care less about image rights and trademarks, because these operators know any kind of enforcement is impossible.

Illegal gambling platforms operate almost exclusively from offshore jurisdictions where the anonymity of their ultimate beneficial owners is protected by local regulations and, to further darken the picture, the use of multiple shell companies that exist only as entries on a registry hidden from public view.

Cease-and-desist letters will be ignored. Legal action? Against whom? You can’t sue ghosts.

Yet, until now, those illegal casinos stopped short of claiming they had been officially endorsed by active footballers. The “global ambassadors” they recruit by the dozens have retired from the game and no longer have to abide by article 27 of the Fifa code of ethics, which prohibits footballers, coaches and officials involved in football from deriving any benefit from their association with sports betting operators, legal or not. Active players who ignore this rule would risk a fine and a ban.

In a significant development, the illegal online casinos Nightwin and QH88 have hijacked the identity of two of the world’s most famous players, Real Madrid’s Jude Bellingham and Manchester United’s Bruno Fernandes, to present them as official partners of their brands, using fake news articles, photographs and AI-generated video to fool their customers into believing that the stars’ endorsement was legitimate.