Jesper Kampmann Madsen, the founder of London-based tech firm Trace2Trace, is building technology to map the networks behind illegal gambling. Madsen, 35, and born in Denmark, knows what it means to be on the other side of the screen: as his decision to fight illegal gambling stems back to his own addiction, he tells iGB.
He was a teenager when he started gambling habitually. For several years, it remained entertainment. Then, when he was in his early twenties, came a large win on a foreign unlicensed gambling site: around €22,000.
“I remember gambling all of it back the same day because they couldn’t pay it out in full immediately,” he says.
The win completely changed his relationship with gambling. In Madsen’s words: “That jackpot was really the beginning of my gambling addiction.” It was an addiction that was propelled by a constant exposure to illegal sites, he explains.
The cycle eventually became extreme.
“At one point, I had only a few thousand euros left to gamble with, but then I won €180,000 in a single day. The next day I lost it all again,” he says.
“The day after that I won €150,000 – and lost that too.” That was the point at which he decided something had to change. “I thought to myself: This has gone too far.”
From addiction to technology
Madsen eventually sought help. His parents supported him and, at one point, took control of his finances. “It was embarrassing, but it was necessary,” he says.
The experience led the tech-savvy Dane to create Spilfri.nu, a blocking and support service for people experiencing gambling problems. The service is free for users, while supporters can pay a monthly fee to help monitor their progress. The service also extends to schools and educational institutions that want to ensure their students are not tempted by gambling when they are supposed to be studying.
The work he’s done through Spilfri.nu has also exposed him to a wider problem within the índustry.
“Our work is not driven by opposition to the gambling industry or to legal, licensed operators. Quite the contrary.”
The focus is on identifying illegal and unregulated gambling sites, operators that offer gambling services without the necessary licence, as well as sites that misuse, copy, or falsely refer to other operators’ licences.
“You can try to stop gambling, but then you go onto foreign gambling sites and crypto casinos and they keep appearing,” Madsen says.
He began watching regulators shut down individual gambling sites, only for mirror sites, cloned domains and replacement URLs to emerge in thier place. The problem, he concluded, was not necessarily the individual website. It was the network behind it.
“Why not use the dataset I already have on gambling sites to map the most problematic ones, identify how they are connected and build a deeper picture of the networks behind them?” That thought process eventually gave birth to Trace2Trace.
Looking beyond the domain
Trace2Trace is relatively new, but Madsen says its underlying dataset has already grown to around 620,000. And it continues to grow, highlighting the scale of illegal operations in the gambling industry.
“We receive around 7,000 domains a day on average through the lists we monitor, including new and cloned sites,” he explains.
The system starts with domains that have already been identified by authorities. Trace2Trace then crawls them, looking for technical connections and similarities.
These include shared hosting, DNS clusters, source-code strings, tracking systems, logos and favicons. The system can also follow redirects and other mechanisms that may not be visible through a conventional web request.
A website might initially appear to be a normal local site, while behind it sits an iframe, JavaScript redirect or a chain of other pages leading to the actual gambling destination.
“You have to follow that chain,” Madsen says. In some cases, that chain can involve multiple layers. “A site might redirect ten times before reaching the actual destination.”
Madsen describes Trace2Trace as “a large search engine that continuously crawls websites”.
AI is used, but only towards the end of the process. First, the system gathers objective indicators; AI is then used to assess the overall pattern and probability of a connection. “We only provide evidence-based findings,” Madsen says. “We don’t say that something is a mirror site because we suspect it is. It is only reported when we are 100% confident there is a match.”
The black market challenge
The timing is significant. The illegal gambling market is attracting growing attention from regulators and the wider industry, while estimates of its size vary considerably depending on definitions and methodology.
A recent Fincord Intelligence report highlighted by the Betting and Gaming Council estimated that illegal online gambling generated around $50 billion in gross revenue globally in 2025. It estimated that around 5,000 operator structures were using more than 15,000 websites and apps.
Other estimates are considerably higher, illustrating how difficult the market is to measure. As an example, separate research from Gaming Compliance International put the value of unregulated online gambling at $5.9 trillion in wagering value in 2025, while estimating that unregulated operators accounted for 78% of global online gaming GGR.
Another report, commisisoned by Euromat, estimates 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.
For enforcement authorities, however, the challenge is not simply estimating its size. It is keeping track of an ecosystem that can continually change domains, infrastructure and acquisition channels. That is where Madsen sees Trace2Trace fitting in.
One of its investigations concerns a specific globally renowned brand. Madsen says an initial scan identified around 1,600 domains, followed by another roughly 4,500 associated with this operator. That puts the number identified so far at around 6,000, although he believes the actual figure is considerably higher. “I think what we’ve found so far is only a small part of the overall picture,” he says. “I’m almost certain the real number is at least twice as high.”
Euromat’s report has suggested that a core group of 25 offshore operators are generating up to 64% of European traffic to the black market.
Aiding operators/suppliers in tracing their products
Madsen says investigators can also examine how sites appear from different jurisdictions. If a site is presented in a country’s local language, for example, that can indicate that the market is being targeted. The next question is whether the operator has the necessary licence.
The same intelligence can be useful to gambling companies and suppliers that want to monitor where their products are appearing. Madsen says Trace2Trace currently has a client that fits that description, although he cannot disclose its identity.
Madsen is clear that Trace2Trace does not shut websites down. Instead it tracks domains, identifies connections and documents changes so that regulators, enforcement authorities or other customers can use the information.
That distinction also informs his view of the wider battle. Asked whether illegal gambling can actually be defeated, his answer is: “No, but you can make it very difficult for them.”
The objective, he argues, is to make it harder for operators to simply replace a blocked domain with another one. “If they knew there was a tool that would find those new sites as well, they might become more cautious.”
It is a philosophy that sits within a broader shift in the industry’s approach to the illegal market. Domain blocking remains important, but regulators are increasingly looking at payments, advertising, affiliate and acquisition channels and cooperation across jurisdictions.
For example, on the role of pirate sports streaming in driving traffic towards illegal gambling, while regulators in markets such as Turkey are confronting large-scale unlicensed activity. The more fragmented and technically sophisticated the illegal market becomes, the more important the intelligence behind enforcement is likely to become.
A personal mission
Madsen knows from experience how difficult it can be to escape gambling when access remains readily available.
“I’m trying to address every stage: prevention, support for people who are already struggling, and then action against the illegal sites.”
He does not believe illegal gambling can simply be eliminated. But he believes it can be made harder to operate. That may be the more realistic role for companies such as Trace2Trace as the illegal market evolves: not replacing regulators or enforcement agencies, but providing the intelligence needed to see beyond the individual URL. For Madsen, the motivation remains deeply personal: “I know very well what gambling addiction can do to people.”
The emergence of his company along with a string of others reflects a growing need in the industry: as illegal operators become more adept at moving, cloning and disguising their online presence, enforcement may increasingly depend on understanding the deep workings of the networks behind the screen.
总部位于伦敦的科技公司Trace2Trace创始人Jesper Kampmann Madsen正在构建一项技术，用于绘制非法赌博背后的网络图谱。现年35岁、出生于丹麦的Madsen深知身处屏幕另一侧意味着什么：他向iGB表示，自己打击非法赌博的决心源于他自身的赌瘾。
他十几岁时就开始习惯性赌博。最初几年，这只是一种娱乐。后来，在他二十出头时，他在一个境外无牌赌博网站上赢得了一笔巨款：约22,000欧元。
“我记得当天就把这些钱全部赌了回去，因为他们无法立即全额支付，”他说。
这次中奖彻底改变了他与赌博的关系。用Madsen的话说：“那笔奖金真正开启了我的赌瘾。”他解释说，这种赌瘾因持续接触非法网站而不断加剧。
这个循环最终走向了极端。
“有一段时间，我只剩下几千欧元可以赌，但后来我在一天之内赢了180,000欧元。第二天我又全部输光了，”他说。
“再往后一天，我赢了150,000欧元——同样也输光了。”就在那时，他决定必须做出改变。“我心想：这已经太过分了。”
从赌瘾到技术
Madsen最终寻求了帮助。他的父母支持他，并一度接管了他的财务。“这很丢人，但很有必要，”他说。
这段经历促使这位精通技术的丹麦人创建了Spilfri.nu，一项面向赌博问题人群的拦截与支持服务。该服务对用户免费，而支持者可以支付月费来帮助监督他们的进展。该服务还延伸至学校和教培机构，这些机构希望确保学生在应该学习时不会受到赌博的诱惑。
他通过Spilfri.nu所做的工作也让他看到了行业内更广泛的问题。
“我们的工作并非出于对博彩行业或合法持牌运营商的反对。恰恰相反。”
重点在于识别非法和不受监管的赌博网站、未持有必要牌照却提供赌博服务的运营商，以及滥用、复制或虚假引用其他运营商牌照的网站。
“你可以尝试戒赌，但随后你接触到境外赌博网站和加密货币赌场，它们不断涌现，”Madsen说。
他开始观察监管机构关停个别赌博网站，结果镜像网站、克隆域名和替代网址却取而代之。他得出结论，问题未必在于单个网站，而在于其背后的网络。
“为什么不利用我已经掌握的赌博网站数据集，绘制出问题最严重的网站图谱，识别它们之间的关联，并更深入地了解其背后的网络呢？”这一思路最终催生了Trace2Trace。
超越域名本身
Trace2Trace相对较新，但Madsen表示其底层数据集已增长至约620,000条，并且仍在持续增长，凸显了博彩行业非法运营的规模。
“通过我们监控的名单，我们平均每天收到约7,000个域名，包括新网站和克隆网站，”他解释说。
该系统从当局已经识别出的域名入手。Trace2Trace随后对其进行爬取，寻找技术关联和相似之处。
这些包括共享主机、DNS集群、源代码字符串、追踪系统、标识和网站图标。该系统还可以跟踪重定向以及其他通过常规网络请求可能无法看到的机制。
一个网站最初可能看起来是正常的本地网站，但其背后可能存在一个iframe、JavaScript重定向或一连串其他页面，最终指向真正的赌博目的地。
“你必须顺着这条链条追下去，”Madsen说。在某些情况下，这条链条可能涉及多个层级。“一个网站可能在到达实际目的地之前重定向十次。”
Madsen将Trace2Trace描述为“一个持续爬取网站的大型搜索引擎”。
AI确实被使用，但仅在流程的最后阶段。首先，系统收集客观指标；然后使用AI评估整体模式和关联的可能性。“我们只提供基于证据的发现，”Madsen说。“我们不会因为怀疑某个网站是镜像站就认定它是。只有当我们100%确信存在匹配时，才会报告。”
黑市挑战
时机至关重要。非法赌博市场正日益受到监管机构和整个行业的关注，而对其规模的估计因定义和方法不同而差异很大。
最近一份由博彩与游戏委员会重点提及的Fincord Intelligence报告估计，2025年全球非法在线赌博产生了约500亿美元的总收入。该报告估计，约有5,000个运营商架构在使用超过15,000个网站和应用程序。
其他估计则要高得多，说明这个市场有多么难以衡量。例如，Gaming Compliance International的另一项研究将2025年不受监管的在线赌博投注额估值为5.9万亿美元，同时估计不受监管运营商占全球在线博彩GGR的78%。
另一份受Euromat委托撰写的报告估计，2019年至2026年间，欧洲黑市保持了18%的复合年增长率，到今年年底其规模将高达130亿欧元。
然而，对于执法机构而言，挑战不仅仅在于估算其规模，还在于跟踪一个能够不断更换域名、基础设施和获客渠道的生态系统。这正是Madsen认为Trace2Trace可以发挥作用的地方。
其调查之一涉及一个特定的全球知名品牌。Madsen表示，初步扫描识别出约1,600个域名，随后又发现了与该运营商相关的约4,500个域名。这使得目前已识别的数量达到约6,000个，但他认为实际数字要高得多。“我认为我们目前发现的只是整体情况的一小部分，”他说。“我几乎可以肯定，真实数字至少是这个的两倍。”
Euromat的报告指出，25家离岸运营商组成的核心群体贡献了欧洲黑市流量的高达64%。
帮助运营商/供应商追踪其产品
Madsen表示，调查人员还可以研究网站在不同司法管辖区的呈现方式。例如，如果某个网站以某国的当地语言呈现，这可能表明该市场正被作为目标。接下来的问题是，该运营商是否持有必要的牌照。
同样的情报对于希望监控其产品出现在何处的博彩公司和供应商也很有用。Madsen表示，Trace2Trace目前有一个符合这一描述的客户，但他无法披露其身份。
Madsen明确表示，Trace2Trace并不关停网站。相反，它追踪域名、识别关联并记录变化，以便监管机构、执法机构或其他客户使用这些信息。
这一区别也影响了他对更广泛斗争的看法。当被问及非法赌博是否真的可以被击败时，他的回答是：“不能，但你可以让他们变得非常困难。”
他认为，目标是让运营商更难简单地用一个域名替换被封锁的域名。“如果他们知道有一种工具也能发现那些新网站，他们可能会变得更加谨慎。”
这一理念契合了行业应对非法市场方式的更广泛转变。域名封锁仍然重要，但监管机构正越来越多地关注支付、广告、联盟和获客渠道以及跨司法管辖区的合作。
例如，关于盗版体育流媒体在推动流量流向非法赌博方面的作用，而土耳其等市场的监管机构正在应对大规模无牌活动。非法市场越分散、技术越复杂，执法背后的情报就可能越重要。
个人使命
Madsen从亲身经历中深知，当赌博渠道仍然唾手可得时，想要摆脱赌瘾有多么困难。
“我试图应对每一个阶段：预防、为已经陷入困境的人提供支持，然后对非法网站采取行动。”
他并不认为非法赌博可以被简单消除。但他相信可以使其更难运营。随着非法市场不断演变，这或许是Trace2Trace这类公司更现实的角色：不是取代监管机构或执法机构，而是提供超越单个URL所需的情报。对Madsen而言，其动机仍然非常个人化：“我非常清楚赌博成瘾会对人造成什么影响。”
他的公司以及一系列其他公司的出现，反映了行业内日益增长的需求：随着非法运营商越来越擅长转移、克隆和伪装其在线存在，执法可能越来越依赖于理解屏幕背后网络的深层运作方式。