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Raja’s appetite for high-stakes gambling predates his emergence as a prominent property lender. The Times reported last month that he was declared bankrupt in March 2005 with debts totaling around £350,000 ($470,000), a portion of which was owed to casino operators.

His bankruptcy was discharged a year later, though he remained subject to bankruptcy restrictions until March 2009. MFS was incorporated in November 2006 by Pratibha Dewan, who later became Raja’s wife.

Raja, who has publicly described himself as the company’s founder, did not formally become a registered director until 2017.

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The report also cites brands targeting a specifically banned vertical or product within a jurisdiction as driving black market activity. While markets across Europe have many examples, one such flagged in the report is that iGaming remains illegal for licensed operators in France.

“The largest black market operators have scaled to create recognisable brands with traffic that can compare to domestically licensed operators,” the report’s authors wrote. “The top group of sites by common owner has a 12% share of traffic, while the largest single brand has 10%.”

Beyond offering crypto payment solutions, a number of black market operators are licensed in “light touch” offshore jurisidictions which use opaque offshore operating structures to help to obscure company ownership and make local enforcement against these companies complex, the report noted.

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The company cited analyses from the Office for Budget Responsibility which suggested previous gambling tax rises had reduced expected tax receipts, including a £500m reduction in forecast receipts for 2029-30. This revenue, writes David, would flow to the black market. 

A new report commissioned by Euromat, and produced by Regulus Partners and Helios, has estimated that Europe’s black market has sustained a compound annual growth rate of 18% between 2019 and 2026, and will be worth up to €13 billion by the end of the year.

Entain said it had requested meetings with government officials to present its concerns directly and facilitate engagement between ministers and frontline shop staff before final budget decisions are made.