The Santeda Connection
Most of the casinos run under Santeda International B.V., which holds a Curacao license. That license carries no legal weight in the UK or most of Europe. Regulators in France, Poland, Greece, Italy, and Sweden have all placed Santeda and its brands on official blacklists.
Domain registry data examined during the investigation shows that several casino URLs in the network, including Velobet, were registered directly to Upgaming or its CEO Tornike Tvauri.
Upgaming denied any ownership links to Santeda and said its involvement was limited to providing software services on a B2B basis. In late March 2026, the company cut ties with Santeda, citing what it described as an unregulated footprint in restricted jurisdictions.
Targeting Gamstop registrants
The investigation revealed that Upgaming had registered several websites that appeared to have been created to redirect British users registered with the national self-exclusion program to brands operated by Santeda. More than half a million people are registered with the Gamstop system in the UK. Licensed operators are legally required to comply with the terms of these registrations, while unlicensed sites aren’t.
According to GAMRS, an organization that collects information on the black market, British consumers deposited approximately £2.02 billion annually on platforms affiliated with Santeda. MyStake alone generated about £1.2 billion in annual revenue from British users. GAMRS data showed that users regularly switched from one site to another after attempting self-exclusion, which the organization characterized as a deliberate customer retention strategy.
Fabricated partnerships
To attract new users, the platform launched a marketing campaign using artificial intelligence, claiming that MyStake had an official partnership with Leeds United and that Brazilian football player Ronaldinho was a brand ambassador. None of these claims were true. Representatives from both Leeds United and Ronaldinho confirmed that no such agreements existed. Deepfake detection platforms analyzed the promotional images and confirmed that they were artificially created.
Corporate structure and money flows
The ties between Upgaming and Santeda go beyond a simple software supply contract. Santeda previously operated under the name Onyxion, a separate company owned by Upgaming’s CEO. Spanish authorities fined Onyxion five million euros for conducting gambling activities without a license.
Affision, the marketing program used to promote Santeda’s brands, was apparently registered by Tvauri in August 2023. Its ultimate owner is Aleksandre Makashvili, another Georgian businessman who holds shares in Upgaming’s German subsidiary.
Upgaming’s Cypriot subsidiary reported revenue of 26 million euros in 2023. The company’s financial statements filed in Cyprus show that 6.5 million euros in loans from Upgaming went toward the development of a shopping complex in Tbilisi. Tvauri and Makashvili are among the investors in this project.
What Regulators can do
Previously, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) asked search engines to remove five of the eight identified sites from their search results. All five sites remain accessible. The UKGC is set to receive new legal powers allowing it to apply to the courts for orders to block specific IP addresses and domain names. Until these powers take effect, the sites continue to operate freely in the UK market.
