Scams, slavery and surface-to-air missiles: Online sports betting in Southeast Asia
Speech: At Play the Game 2025, investigative journalist and research director at the Eyewitness Project, Lindsey Kennedy delivered a hard-hitting presentation exposing the human cost of the global online betting industry.
In her speech “Scams, slavery and surface-to-air missiles: Online sports betting in Southeast Asia”, Lindsey Kennedy described how illegal online gambling networks in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and the Philippines have evolved into sprawling criminal empires built on human trafficking, forced labour, and torture.
According to Kennedy, thousands of people from around the world are lured with fake job offers and end up enslaved in compounds where online gambling and scam operations thrive.
As these compounds expand, they have even become military targets, highlighting the dangerous convergence of crime, corruption, and armed conflict in the global betting industry.
Kennedy also revealed that companies connected to these crimes continue to sponsor major European football clubs, using sport to launder their profits and reputations.
“Countries are going to war in part because of criminal groups who are somehow still permitted to use the proceeds of crime to sponsor sports teams in Europe,” she said, adding: “Perhaps it’s time their enablers in the sports industry were treated the same way.”
The presentation formed part of the session “From monopoly to market: Who’s entering Finland’s gambling space?”, which explored the wider challenges of unregulated betting markets and their impact on sport, governance, and society.
