Tesco has alerted fraud authorities after its name and familiar green visual language were used to promote an unlicensed online casino. Britain’s biggest supermarket has therefore acquired a gambling division without the tedious preliminaries of opening one, licensing it or knowing it exists.
The Guardian reported on Sunday 13 September that adverts on Facebook linked to a site presenting itself as an official Tesco casino. The site was accessible in Britain but was not licensed to provide gambling services here. Tesco referred the material to the National Cyber Security Centre and Report Fraud, which is run by City of London police.
City of London police confirmed receiving the report, but said it had not at that point been passed to a force for investigation. That distinction matters: a complaint has been made; it is not yet a finding that a named person or platform committed an offence.
One scam, many borrowed faces
This is wider than one supermarket. The Guardian found ads or sites using imagery associated with Barclays, Monzo, Coral and Gala Bingo. Sports personalities including Jude Bellingham, Bruno Fernandes and Lewis Hamilton have had their images used without consent, while another advert featured an apparent Erling Haaland lookalike.
The technique is brutally efficient. A familiar name supplies trust; a celebrity supplies attention; a countdown or bonus supplies urgency. The criminal operator contributes a website and waits for recognition to do the expensive work.
Meta removed several adverts after being contacted by the Guardian. The company’s position, according to the report, is that advertisers are responsible for obeying local law. That may describe the contractual allocation of responsibility, but it does not answer the practical question: why can a paid advert impersonating a household brand reach users before the household brand can stop it?
How to check before paying
In Great Britain, an online gambling operator targeting consumers must hold a Gambling Commission licence. Users can check the regulator’s public register rather than trusting a logo, a blue tick-shaped graphic or an advert that says “official” with the confidence of a man wearing three stolen lanyards.
Check the exact web address. Scam sites often use extra words, hyphens or unfamiliar domain endings. Search independently for the brand’s real website instead of following the advert. Never assume that a celebrity photograph proves an endorsement, particularly where the image looks oddly smooth, the voice is unnatural or the mouth and words are on distant speaking terms.
Payment method matters too. Pressure to use cryptocurrency, bank transfer or an unfamiliar processor removes protections that may exist with mainstream card payments. Anyone who has paid should contact their bank quickly, save screenshots and report the advert and website. The Gambling Commission accepts reports about illegal operators; Report Fraud handles fraud reports in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The regulator told the Guardian that identity theft involving trusted brands was a particularly cynical form of illegal gambling promotion. It expects stronger powers from the Crime and Policing Bill, although enforcement still has to move at internet speed rather than committee speed.
Why platforms remain central
An illegal site can be hosted abroad, change domains and reappear. Social platforms remain valuable because paid distribution puts the imitation directly in front of a carefully selected audience. Removing individual adverts is necessary but reactive. Better advertiser verification, automated detection of copied brands and rapid channels for verified rights-holders would reduce the window in which the scam works.
This is also an AI story. Cheap image, voice and video generation makes impersonation more convincing and more scalable. The answer is not to distrust every advert; it is to demand that platforms selling targeted reach perform proportionate checks on who is buying it.
Follow OutOut’s Money section for practical consumer reporting and Technology for the systems carrying the ads.
The OutOut verdict
Tesco did not launch a casino. Barclays did not open “slots”. Footballers have not become croupiers during the international break. If an advert’s entire pitch is that a trusted name has suddenly entered an unrelated business, suspicion is not cynicism; it is basic maintenance.
Platforms can no longer behave like billboards surprised to discover they sold the same space to a burglar wearing a supermarket uniform. Users should check the licence. Regulators should move faster. And anyone offered free spins in aisle seven should keep walking towards the actual biscuits.
