BSEC to probe gambling promotion appearing on its website

The capital market regulator has started an investigation into how a promotional page of an online sports betting site appeared on its website recently.

On Sunday, some came to notice that searching Betwinner, an online gambling company, on Google produced a certain link related to Bangladesh. Once clicked, the link directed to the website of the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC) which showed a page on "Betwinner Bangladesh review". The page offered attractive promotions for Bangladeshis betting through Betwinner.

The commission said it wasn’t aware of how the page appeared on its website and has since removed the page, once the matter came to BSEC’s attention.

However, searching Betwinner on Google still showed a result with a BSEC link till filing this report.

Many were surprised to see the promotion of an online gambling company on the website of an important state institution.

The commission has informed that it has already formed its own investigation committee to find out how the link of Betwinner got connected to the BSEC website.

Besides, on Sunday, BSEC sent a letter to the related intelligence agencies to investigate the matter.

In this regard, BSEC executive director and spokesperson Mohammad Rezaul Karim said that everyone was surprised by the matter.

The commission has already taken various initiatives to find out how it happened, he said. He further added that the link has been removed from the website.

The appearance of Betwinner on the BSEC site got even more puzzling when cricketer Shakib Al Hasan recently announced signing a contract with Betwinner’s sister concern “Betwinner News” as a product ambassador.

Following Shakib’s announcement, the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) said the entire situation will be reviewed first to find out if the cricketer is involved in a sponsorship deal with a betting company before sending Shakib an official notice.

Betwinner, on its website, mentions that the site is owned and operated with a licence from Curacao, while its billing agent is registered in Cyprus.

The company is a subsidiary of popular online gambling company 1xbet.