Scottish Council Website Carried Links To Offshore Casino Sites

Links on the Scottish Borders Council website directing users to information about community councils were found to lead instead to offshore casino websites.

The council’s website contains a directory of all 69 community councils across the Scottish Borders, with links to their websites, social media pages and email contacts.

BBC Scotland News found that 16 of those website links were redirecting users to pages displaying offshore casino sites. The council removed the affected links after being alerted to the issue but did not respond to a request for comment.

Cyber security expert Dr Daniel Thomas of the University of Strathclyde described the incident as an example of “domain squatting”.

Community Council Domains Redirected

Domain squatting can involve organisations using automated systems to acquire expired domain names associated with established websites, including domains using extensions such as .org and .org.uk. Buying an expired domain name is not illegal.

Thomas said the community council domains were potentially attractive because their URLs were listed on the Scottish Borders Council website.

When someone is looking for the community council and are met with this gambling portal they will think something is wrong and of course not engage with the site, he said.

But when someone is searching for these sites, the now re-directed community council site will be at the top of list, as it appears a local group is giving out suggestions on the best offshore gambling sites to use.

Fifteen of the 16 affected community council websites identified by BBC Scotland News had been built and operated through Online Borders, a former third-sector website directory.

Sources within the community councils told the BBC that the platform became unresponsive around eight years ago. Scottish Borders Council subsequently moved to close it and instructed the community councils to create their own websites.

Links associated with Online Borders now redirect users to the same portal, which displays a list of “top noGamstop casinos”.

Chirnside Community Council was the only affected council identified by the BBC whose website was not hosted through Online Borders. Its link redirected users to Joyslot88, an Indonesian website.

Offshore Sites Fall Outside UK Gambling Rules

The gambling websites promoted through the redirects operate outside British jurisdiction and therefore do not participate in Gamstop, the UK’s national online gambling self-exclusion scheme.

Gamstop allows people to exclude themselves from gambling websites and apps operated by participating businesses.

Thomas said smaller community organisations could be particularly vulnerable to this type of activity.

Organisations tend to target small community groups like these councils as they are mainly ran by older people who don't have much tech knowledge, he said.

Councils like these change members quite regularly as well and sometimes things can get forgotten in the shuffle, domain leases can be one of them. That's what these organisations prey on.

The BBC also reported that “No Gamstop” casinos can bypass certain UK consumer protections, including the prohibition on credit card gambling introduced by the UK Gambling Commission in 2020.

The 16 affected community councils were:

• Berwickshire: Chirnside; Duns; Gordon & Westruther; Hutton & Paxton

• Cheviot: Ancrum; Crailing, Eckford & Nisbet; Heiton & Roxburgh; Lanton; Oxnam Water; Sprouston

• Eildon: Bowden; Newton & Eildon

• Teviot & Liddlesdale: Hobkirk; Southdean; Upper Liddesdale & Hermita

• Tweeddale: Carlops

Following the BBC’s approach, Scottish Borders Council is understood to have issued a memo asking community councils to check that their websites were up to date.