Lost Relics

How to play Lost Relics

The offences relate to special betting markets that let customers wager on the exact date of the general election.

The then-prime minister, Rishi Sunak, announced 4 July 2024 as the election date on 22 May 2024. However, internal planning for that date had already begun at 10 Downing Street and Conservative Campaign Headquarters before the announcement.

Anthony Lee’s senior campaigning role gave him access to confidential discussions about the election timing. Rather than keeping that information confidential, he placed bets and passed it to his wife. She then used the information to place her own bets.

What is Lost Relics?

Voluntary efforts have included Premier League football opting to ban front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships, as of the beginning of this current season. Although, branding remains on training kits, shirt sleeves and across stadium advertisements. 

The committee’s previous 2020 report had recommended banning gambling ads on team shirts, training kits, stadium advertising and broadcasts, although on-course advertising for horse and greyhound racing was exempt.

The report rejected argumentswarning that advertising restrictions would drive consumers to illicit gambling sites. They citied weak evidence for mass migration to illegal operators following advertising limits. 

What is Lost Relics?

“The largest black market operators have scaled to create recognisable brands with traffic that can compare to domestically licensed operators,” the report’s authors wrote. “The top group of sites by common owner has a 12% share of traffic, while the largest single brand has 10%.”

Beyond offering crypto payment solutions, a number of black market operators are licensed in “light touch” offshore jurisidictions which use opaque offshore operating structures to help to obscure company ownership and make local enforcement against these companies complex, the report noted.

By comparison, the long tail of smaller black market sites rely heavily on affiliates to generate traffic.