Devils Crossroad

About Devils Crossroad

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.

UK operators already carry out enhanced checks on politically exposed persons (PEPs), but this case shows the limits of those safeguards, Bethan Lloyd, partner at law firm Wiggin, recently told iGB.

About Devils Crossroad

Instead, spreadsheets and business-intelligence dashboards each accounted for 30%, and CRM platforms followed at 24%. Only 15% used AI/automation tools in any capacity, and then only as secondary aids.

Large and demanding portfolios were highlighted as a key challenge, with 64% of managers overseeing 100 or more VIPs, while one in five managed more than 500. 

The report highlighted the intense workload by estimating that a manager looking after 250 players would have roughly 100 seconds to commit to each player each day if their time was split equally. Data quality and fragmentation were also issues. 

How to play Devils Crossroad

Bet365 noted the impact of the UK government’s near doubling of the remote gaming duty, which increased from 21% to 40% on 1 April this year.

Additionally, a new remote betting duty is set to come in from April 2027, which will raise the effective tax rate on all sports betting products except horse racing from 15% to 25%.

Several other operators have responded to the UK tax hikes by announcing shop closures.