You trust your local council’s website. It’s where you pay your taxes, check bin collection dates, and find community resources. You don’t expect to click a link for a "Neighbourhood Partnership" program and land on an offshore casino designed to help you bypass national gambling blocks. But that’s exactly what happened in Edinburgh recently, and it’s a symptom of a much larger, messy reality online.
The story isn't just about a glitch; it’s about "domain squatting" and the way outdated government infrastructure is being weaponized. When the City of Edinburgh Council moved on from an old website in 2019, they didn't—or couldn't—scrub every single reference to it across the wider internet. That old web address eventually lapsed, a third party snatched it up, and by 2025, it was being used to push aggressive gambling advertisements.
The Digital Ghost Town Problem
This isn't just an Edinburgh issue. It's a systemic failure. Governments are constantly launching initiatives, mini-sites, and campaign pages. When these projects end, the domains often get abandoned.
I’ve seen this pattern repeatedly in my own research into web security. An organization launches a site for a specific event—say, a summer festival or a local sustainability drive—and then forgets about it. The domain name, once it expires, hits the open market. Shady operators love these high-authority, "gov.uk" or council-linked domains. They inherit the site's search engine ranking and its existing backlinks.
If a council’s main library page still points to an old, abandoned "Neighbourhood Partnership" link, the search engines think that old site is still reputable. When a user clicks that link, they’re redirected to a casino that intentionally ignores Gamstop, the UK’s self-exclusion service. It’s a genius move for the scammers and a nightmare for the council.
Why They Want to Bypass Gamstop
If you aren't familiar with the industry, Gamstop is the gold standard for responsible gambling in the UK. It prevents users from accessing licensed operators. Offshore casinos, particularly those licensed in places like Curaçao, don't play by these rules. They aren't just "unregulated"; they are actively targeting people who have already taken the step of saying, "I want to stop."
These sites are essentially predatory. By hijacking a trusted government domain, they gain a veneer of legitimacy. A resident, clicking a link on a site they trust, might feel safer signing up for an offshore casino because they assume the council "vetted" the link. It’s a cynical exploitation of public trust.
What You Should Do Now
Don't assume a link is safe just because it’s on a .gov or .scot domain. The internet is full of "ghost" pages that councils no longer manage.
- Check the URL. If a link takes you to a page that looks vastly different from the council’s main portal—if it has weird branding, excessive pop-ups, or doesn't match the standard government design language—close it immediately.
- Verify the host. If a site claims to be a community resource, search for it through the council’s official homepage navigation, not just by clicking a link you found on an older sub-page or a forum.
- Report the link. If you stumble onto a broken or suspicious redirect, email the council’s digital services department. They often have no idea these old links are still floating around in the deep corners of their site architecture.
- Use official channels. For sensitive things like taxes or local benefits, always type the address manually into your browser. Never follow a link from a search result or a third-party directory unless you are absolutely certain of its provenance.
The reality is that local authorities are underfunded and tech-stretched. They’re dealing with aging IT systems and staff who don’t have the time to track down every single orphaned link from 2019. It’s a mess, and it won't be fixed by a single sweep.
Stay skeptical. The web is forever, even when the people who built it have moved on. Your local council isn't trying to sell you a slot machine seat, but the internet pirates holding their old domains certainly are. Don't give them the traffic they're looking for.
