A Bloomberg investigation has lifted the lid on how the Isle of Man’s e-gaming sector came to be infiltrated by Asian scam rings.
Its report claims the government’s drive to attract new business left it exposed to exploitation by criminal gangs - and reveals a ‘revolving door’ between the regulators and the companies they were meant to be overseeing.
Published under the headline ‘How a tiny British island fell into an international gambling scandal’, the report - based on a cache of emails from King Gaming, the online gaming company raided by police in 2024 - alleges that when it came to the gambling sector, government watchdogs were ‘dangerously inattentive’.
But in a statement, the Isle of Man Government insisted its response to the threat of organised crime had been ‘clear and deliberate’ and that the island’s online gambling sector is now more tightly regulated and scrutinised than at any point in its history.
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It cites a former King Gaming employee who said officers tried and failed to break down the door to the finance department, which was ‘unusually well-fortified’, before going around the back of the building and smashing a first-floor window to gain entry.
Seven people were arrested. To date, no one has been charged.
A few months before the raid, a court in Beijing had found six former employees of a King Gaming subsidiary guilty of scamming victims in China out of millions of dollars from a ‘pig butchering’ operation based in Douglas. The court described the company as a ‘criminal organisation’.
Bloomberg alleges multiple warning signs were overlooked by the government, the immigration department and regulators.
It says red flags regarding King Gaming founder, Chinese national Bill Morgan, and his links to the Golden Triangle enclave in Laos - known as a centre for drugs, human trafficking and cybercrime - were ignored.
And it points to emails which appear to show a Gambling Supervision Commission inspector continuing to carry out inspections of King Gaming after applying for a job with the company and receiving a formal offer of employment
Bloomberg also alleges that King Gaming secured £5.92m in state funds and tax breaks to relocate up to 200 foreign workers and construct a corporate campus on Victoria Road.
Construction work on the new headquarters was halted after the April 2024 raids.
The government insists that no financial support has been provided directly or indirectly to King Gaming.
Bloomberg’s report outlines how a whistleblowing former director fired from King Gaming raised concerns with the GSC, offering to walk them through evidence purporting to show a vast network of international gambling sites operating on the company’s server - but never heard back.
The emails show that following this, Morgan asked for the resignation of the company’s other founder, former government head of e-gaming Mark Robson.
Bloomberg also alleges that immigration officials rubber stamped intra company transfer visas for workers in a King Gaming subsidiary despite their Philippines work permits having been for a company linked to organised crime.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the government said: ‘Organised crime targeting online gambling is not unique to the Isle of Man. It is a challenge facing jurisdictions across the world, from established financial centres to major economies.
‘What defines a jurisdiction is not whether it has been targeted, but how it responds.
‘Our response has been clear and deliberate. Police action in April 2024 has led to a large and complex investigation against King Gaming and subsequently other operators too.
‘The Isle of Man's online gambling sector is now smaller, more tightly regulated, and subject to more rigorous scrutiny than at any point in its history.
‘In 2025, we published our National Risk Appetite statement, setting out clearly that the Isle of Man has limited appetite for online gambling operations owned or controlled from East or Southeast Asia.
‘We are also strengthening our immigration framework to ensure that the intracompany transfer route cannot be exploited in the way this case illustrated. That work is under way.
‘The Isle of Man's anti-money laundering standards are robust and reviewed regularly against international benchmarks.
‘We take our international obligations seriously. We act when action is required. And we are building the regulatory and enforcement framework that reflects the complexity of the threat landscape we all face.’