Mayhem

About Mayhem

Beyond offering crypto payment solutions, a number of black market operators are licensed in “light touch” offshore jurisidictions which use opaque offshore operating structures to help to obscure company ownership and make local enforcement against these companies complex, the report noted.

By comparison, the long tail of smaller black market sites rely heavily on affiliates to generate traffic.

Much of the onus for the increasing black market is put on increasingly restrictive policies enforced by regulators across the licensed sector.

How to play Mayhem

Cirsa has followed an aggressive acquisition strategy in recent years, most recently entering the land-based casino market in Portugal by acquiring a majority stake in Sociedade Figueira Praia, S.A., the owner and operator of Casino Figueira.

Prior to that, Cirsa entered the Paraguay market through an acquisition of the online slots operator Slots del Sol, while it also acquired the leading Peruvian operator Apuesta Total in 2024.

As of June 2025, the company had completed over 130 acquisitions since 2015.

How to play Mayhem

In a press release on Friday, Ladbrokes and Coral owner Entain urged the government to “close the loophole without delay” in response to a Department for Culture, Media and Sport consultation on the matter.

The second consultation, which ran from 15 July to 9 September, followed an initial review in February.

But Entain warned the current timeline, which would enforce the ban by August 2027, was not timely enough, allowing unlicensed operators to sponsor Premier League clubs for another full season.