Bridget Phillipson wrote to the British Gambling Commission on a matter that connects a £5 million political donation, a Montenegro-based gambling platform, and a convicted fraudster to the question of whether anyone in that chain held the licence required to serve British consumers.
The platform at the centre of her letter is Tether.bet. It posted a closure notice on August 12. The Sunday Times had reported that George Cottrell, a long-time associate of Nigel Farage with a fraud conviction, was a prominent customer. Cottrell's lawyers have said his involvement was limited to that of a customer. They have also described him as one of the world's best-known professional gamblers, which is either an explanation or a further complication depending on how you read regulatory exposure.
The second entity Phillipson names is Fispay Ltd, a UK company whose owner, Mowbray Jackson, serves as Reform UK's data protection officer. Jackson has said his firm arranges private jet travel and has never offered gambling products. The Sunday Times also reported that crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne, whose £5 million donation to Farage is already under review by the parliamentary commissioner for standards, owned IFX, a payments company that allegedly processed transactions for an operator handling deposits and winnings. Harborne has not been quoted directly in the available reporting.
Phillipson's letter asks the Commission to determine whether Tether.bet provided or advertised remote gambling facilities to UK consumers without the required licence, and whether Fispay or any related UK company supported such facilities. The political framing in her letter is pointed. The legal framing is straightforward.
The Gambling Act 2005 makes it an offence to provide remote gambling services to persons in Great Britain without a Commission licence. The Act does not distinguish between a platform headquartered in Montenegro and one headquartered in Manchester. What matters is whether the service was accessible to and used by British consumers. Advertising without a licence carries its own exposure under the same Act.
What the Commission will need to establish is whether either entity was, in the language of the Act, "providing facilities for gambling" to persons in Great Britain. The closure of Tether.bet complicates enforcement but does not resolve the prior question of whether unlicensed activity occurred. Regulators in this jurisdiction have pursued enforcement actions against companies that ceased operations, particularly where consumer harm or unlicensed advertising can be documented.
Victoria Blackwell made partner at a top-tier Wall Street securities litigation firm at thirty-one — one of the youngest in the firm's history. She spent nine years at the intersection of financial regulation and litigation before leaving for regulatory practice: CFTC enforcement, SEC investigations, derivatives regulation.
The Gambling Act 2005 makes it an offence to provide remote gambling services to persons in Great Britain without a Gambling Commission licence, regardless of where the platform is headquartered. The Act focuses on whether the service was accessible to and used by British consumers, not the operator's location. Advertising unlicensed gambling facilities carries separate exposure under the same statute.
Bridget Phillipson's letter to the Gambling Commission named Tether.bet, a Montenegro-based gambling platform that posted a closure notice on August 12, and Fispay Ltd, a UK company whose owner Mowbray Jackson serves as Reform UK's data protection officer. Phillipson asked the Commission to determine whether either entity provided or advertised remote gambling facilities to UK consumers without a required licence.
The closure of Tether.bet complicates enforcement but does not resolve the prior question of whether unlicensed activity occurred. UK regulators have pursued enforcement actions against companies that ceased operations, particularly where consumer harm or unlicensed advertising can be documented, meaning the Commission retains authority to investigate historical conduct.
Whether the Commission opens a formal investigation turns on the evidence made available by Bridget Phillipson and the Sunday Times reporting, and on whether the Commission concludes the public interest threshold for investigation is met under its own enforcement guidance. Speed and scope of any inquiry depend on how the Commission evaluates that evidence.
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