The far-right British political party, Reform UK, has had its old domain hijacked to promote unregulated casinos online. Originally called The Brexit Party, the domain “thebrexitparty.org” now gives a top 11 list of non-GAMSTOP casinos instead.
While presumably not in a knowing partnership, five licensed casinos are also advertising on the website. These include Betfred, Betfair, and All British Sports.
Looking at WHOIS, the domain registration checker, all the information about who now owns the domain is obscured, as expected. However, it shows the dates of when the potential resurrection of the domain came into play.
Until recently, the website was left to expire and went up for auction through domain registrar GoDaddy. Using the Wayback Machine, this appears to be the case until around March (which corresponds with WHOIS).
April’s archived snapshots from the Wayback Machine show typical webpage errors occurring frequently, until it eventually morphs into what we have today.
Brexit Party website now targeting gambling’s vulnerable
For a political party that claims it’s for the British public, to have one of its old domains bought rather than kept on for redirection, to ensure nothing bad like this can happen, seems to be quite a misstep.
Moreover, after the recent local elections, multiple Reform winners have had to step down for a myriad of reasons, or promised actions for things that don’t exist, compounding the misfortunes for the party.
GAMSTOP is an app that will help those with gambling addiction block the apps that can trigger a spiral. However, the Brexit Party website is now being geared towards those who are seeking a way around GAMSTOP and potentially putting them at risk.
The cynical recycling of the website has clearly been a rush job, too, as the original Brexit Party manifesto or “contract” is still on the site. Author Alan Bridges’ image doesn’t return any results, indicating that it could be generated by AI or has simply never existed online before.
ReadWrite has reached out for comment.
