Chelsea Football Club today introduces 1xBet as their official Betting Partner for the next three seasons.

Visitors to ‘pirate’ sites are no strangers to the Russia-based gambling company 1XBET.

Who is responsib;e for the ads that appear in ‘pirate’ releases isn’t clear.
There’s no public information that 1XBET directly sponsors ‘pirate’ releases or whether over-enthusiastic affiliates are to blame.

Sources could be russian, but nevertheless, things were bound to come to ahead at some point.

Liverpool, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur – whom previously struck sponsorship deals with 1XBET – recently received communication from the UK’s Gambling Commission noting that since having its license revoked (in part due to its advertising on ‘illegal’ means), the clubs cannot continue doing business with 1XBET.

A few days ago, Tottenham announced that it had ended their its multi-million-pound partnership with the company. At the time of writing, Chelsea and Liverpool are yet to make an official announcement.

In response to the allegations, a 1XBET spokesperson said that is taking the matter seriously and, as such has, decided to stop operating in the UK, at least for the moment.

“We take very seriously the allegation that 1xBet’s brand has been promoted on prohibited sites, which is strictly against our policies, and we have launched an investigation. Pending the outcome…we believe it is responsible to temporarily suspend our advertising activity in the UK,” the company said.

Yet their UK twitter continues to tweet about betting.

Somewhat embarrassingly for top tier football league Serie A who launched launched an anti-piracy campaign, decrying piracy of all kinds, it turns out that 13% of the sites carrying 1XBET ads were ‘pirate’ sports streaming platforms and categorized as “high risk” by White Bullet.