Lindsey Kennedy: Scams, slavery and surface-to-air missiles – Online sports betting in Southeast Asia

Online sports betting is often presented as entertainment – a fast-growing industry built around odds, apps, sponsorships, and fan engagement.

But behind parts of that industry lies a much darker story.

In this episode, you can hear investigative journalist Lindsey Kennedy expose how illegal online gambling networks in Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and the Philippines have developed into sprawling criminal empires built on human trafficking, forced labour, torture, corruption, and organised crime.

Thousands of people from around the world are lured by fake job offers and end up trapped in compounds where online gambling and scam operations thrive.

As these compounds expand, they have even become entangled in armed conflict – turning parts of the global betting industry into something far more dangerous than a question of gambling regulation.

The episode also connects the story to international sport.

According to Kennedy, companies linked to these criminal networks have been able to sponsor major European football clubs, using sport to clean their image, build legitimacy, and move closer to the mainstream.

Host: Stanis Elsborg, head of Play the Game

Speaker: Lindsey Kennedy, investigative journalist and research director at the Eyewitness Project

This episode is produced by Play the Game.

Music: Voices by rexlambo