Labour urges Gambling Commission to investigate firms linked to Reform UK donors

Bridget Phillipson writes to watchdog asking it to look into claims Tether.bet and Fispay operated without a licence The Gambling Commission has been urged to investigate claims that companies linked to Reform UK donors and allies of Nigel Farage have been operating without a licence. The Labour party’s chair, Bridget Phillipson, has written to the watchdog asking it to look into Tether.bet, a Montenegro-based gambling company, and Fispay, a UK company owned by Reform’s data protection officer, Mowbray Jackson. It comes after the Sunday Times reported that both companies had been operating without a licence. Crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne’s £5m gift to Farage is already under scrutiny by the parliamentary commissioner for standards. George Cottrell, a convicted fraudster and long-term ally of Farage, is linked to Tether.bet, which issued a closure notice on its website on 12 August. It is against the law to provide gambling facilities without a licence in the UK under the Gambling Act 2005. Jackson told the Sunday Times his company “exclusively” brokered private jet travel and it had never provided facilities for gambling, while Cottrell said he was a customer of Tether.be