Erik The Red

About Erik The Red

A month earlier, Polymarket opened a free grocery store in New York City. The promotion ran Feb. 12-16, with shoppers allowed to gather up to $50 per person in free groceries.   

More recently, Polymarket has paid top dollar for prominent athletes and celebrities to promote its prediction market. The company’s paid partners include LeBron James, Derek Jeter, Eli Manning, Spike Lee, and Craig Robinson.

The Polymarket water tower can be seen from I-94, but isn’t overly prominent, as the interstate passes beneath three bridges—Concord Avenue, train tracks, and a service road—near the Mount Elliott exit.

About Erik The Red

The investigation, which included secretly recorded interviews and conversations with Evolution staff members and other whistleblowers, was followed up with a damning report accusing the supplier of knowingly providing its services in sanctioned jurisdictions.

In April, court documents showed that Evolution had sought to add Playtech to the case.

While Playtech has backed its Black Cube investigation Evolution slammed it as a “smear campaign”, and has strongly refuted the claims made, citing them as “highly inflammatory and knowingly false”.

How to play Erik The Red

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.