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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.
“PEP status does not prevent someone from gambling,” Lloyd explained. She said PEPs are entitled to bet, but not on events where inside information gives them an unfair advantage.
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Yahoo—which is 90% owned by private equity giant Apollo Global Management, the firm that acquired operating control of The Venetian in Las Vegas—did not elaborate on why the Polymarket integration ended.
Yahoo Finance is one of the most visited financial news websites in the world, implying it’s a blow to Polymarket that its prediction market hub was pulled, but the operator has other prominent financial media deals.
Prior to announcing the Yahoo Finance accord last November, Polymarket and one of its rivals unveiled deals with Google Finance.
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Despite the increase in remote GGY, new account registrations fell 3% to 32.4 million. There were 25.7 million active accounts at the end of the final reporting quarter.
Funds held in customer accounts also declined sharply. Operators held £886.6 million ($1.19 billion), down 13.9% from the same point a year earlier.
Retail betting diverged significantly from the wider market, with non-remote betting GGY falling 3.3% to £2.4 billion ($3.2 billion). The number of betting shops dropped for a 12th consecutive reporting period to 5,617 premises—a 3.6% annual decline (down 208 shops from March 2025).