Tesco Branding Hijacked by Unlicensed 'Tesco Slots' Casino
A casino with no licence is running ads on Meta's Facebook platform across the UK, and it's doing it under the Tesco name. The operation calls itself Tesco Slots. It has lifted the supermarket's red-and-blue branding whole, the better to suggest Tesco itself has gone into gambling. British users can still reach the pages.
The pitch at the centre of it: fund your bets through Tesco's own infrastructure. The Tesco debit card, Tesco Bank, Tesco Mobile, all named as payment routes.
"Tesco Slots brings the UK's most trusted supermarket brand to online casino. Earn rewards on every spin, the same way you earn Clubcard points on your weekly shop," the site says.
There's a nod to compliance too. Debit cards accepted, credit cards barred. UK-licensed operators have followed that restriction since April 2020. But the nod is cosmetic. Look at the welcome offer instead: £1,500 plus 250 free spins. No licensed British casino would hang that figure on a new account.
The licensing claims collapse on inspection. Tesco Slots says the Curaçao Gambling Authority approved it. Search the regulator's register and no matching entity turns up. Near the bottom of the page, in text sized so you'll miss it, a line sitting under the words "The Official Tesco Casino" hands all legal responsibility to an operating company with no name attached. Nobody has disclosed who that is. Click the Terms and Conditions link and you get a blank white page. One sentence sits in the top-left corner: "Silence is golden."
Every other link does the same thing, redirecting to a win.101nightwin address with an "id=7557" parameter attached. An SEO specialist told SBC News that format is an affiliate tracking link, which would mean the site exists to push traffic somewhere else rather than take bets itself. So far that's the clearest technical detail anyone has.
Then there's the 101nightwin domain, which raises a question of its own. A licensed NightWin casino does exist, operating under a Curaçao permit held by Flybergom B.V. Nobody has established a direct link between the two. What is documented: Flybergom got its licence in September 2025, and from 26 March 2026 that licence has been under assessment, which leaves it effectively inactive. The CGA has been asked to comment.
Hijacking brands is nothing new in the UK market. Earlier this month, My Therappy, an NHS subsidiary site abandoned since 2020 but still carrying NHS messaging and still ranking in search, was exploited through a security weakness. August produced a similar case involving the Scottish Borders Council. June brought the Old Catton Parish Council, which found itself displaying ads for an illegal Indonesian casino. The International Betting Integrity Association has been hit at least once as well.
The government's answer was the Illegal Gambling Taskforce, set up at the start of 2026 and drawing in bodies like the Advertising Standards Authority. The ASA told SBC News the taskforce came from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and holds no enforcement powers of its own. Its job is convening, pulling together regulators, industry and the big platforms, Meta included, to find workable answers on illegal gambling ads. The Gambling Commission stays the primary regulator here, with the ASA helping where it can under what's called a "collective ad regulation" approach.
For operators and affiliates, the practical read is simple enough. Meta's ad review didn't catch a fake Tesco casino using a registered trademark. The Curaçao register shows no licence behind the claim. Compliance teams watching unauthorised use of UK-facing brands should log the 101nightwin redirect and the id=7557 affiliate parameter. What the taskforce does next about platform advertising is the thing to watch.