0 comments
the beautiful game, it aint
There are certain things you stumble on when mindlessly scrolling that are so dystopian you assume they’re either made up for engagement or grossly exaggerated.
Sports betting farms were that for me.
In a curtained-off gym or warehouse, four young blokes are playing a two vs two match as Real Madrid and Arsenal. There aren’t any spectators or fans, no ref, and a single camera films from one end of the pitch with all the production value of CCTV footage from a petrol garage.
Goals aren’t celebrated, and the players stroll about with all the urgency of a builder on tea break. When the match concludes, they walk off and promptly return as different football teams and do the whole thing again.
This is ‘short football’, where anonymous players meander through 12-minute games on repeat purely so online punters have something to bet on.
An investigation by Bellingcat found that dodgy bookmaker 1xBet was streaming these games from secret locations in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus, sometimes back-to-back and at all hours. It’s not just football, either. There’s basketball, volleyball, hockey, tennis, cricket, and frankly ridiculous 1v1 football matches played on benches.
There are kick-offs at 5:00am and players represent multiple teams in rapid succession, hence the obvious physical fatigue and general Squid Game atmosphere. In one 24-hour period, Bellingcat counted 1,297 short football games streamable and offering live odds. For some scope of how mental that is, a whole Premier League season totals 380.
One former player told investigators he was paid just 2,000 rubles, equating to roughly $30, for a five-hour shift involving six or seven games. He also revealed players were under strict instructions not to score a certain number of goals and faced wage deductions if they failed to comply.
If that wasn’t Black Mirror enough, Bellingcat found that people could even gamble on games involving children, with one third-party provider advertising its ability to stream from anywhere, including school playgrounds. Obviously, much of this took place and continues to take place unbeknownst to parents.
1xBet may be suspended in the UK and unlicensed in the US – with a company behind its operation also declared bankrupt in the Netherlands – but we were able to slap on a quick VPN and check that this offering is still available.
View this post on Instagram
Conor McGregor, a bastion of morality, is plastered all over the website banners alongside AI images that also reportedly appear as pop-ups on dodgy adult websites.
Premier League clubs Chelsea, Tottenham, and Liverpool severed ties with 1xBet following a 2019 Sunday Times investigation that uncovered betting on cockfighting and promotions for something called a ‘Pornhub Casino’. Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, questionably, remain among the bookmaker’s major sponsorship partners.
It’s disturbing to know that such an entity can thrive while moving in such a shameless capacity. At least with most betting companies they can operate under the thin veil of enhancing the experience of spectacle. This is the inverse, where poorly paid zombies in bibs drudge through as many games as possible to provide betting material.
For all the effort, these matches aren’t even huge money makers, but operate as a low-stakes way of getting people hooked on the casino front.
Anyway, got to shoot. Manchester United vs Arsenal is kicking off in five minutes, again.
machine overlords
Chinese humanoid robots smash human records in 100m sprint and high jump at Beijing robot games – ap
More than 2,000 humanoid robots were put through their paces last week for the second World Humanoid Robot Games. Absolutely nothing to worry about here. They only smashed the 100-metre and high-jump records. The five-day showcase basically staked out China’s claim to undisputed leaders in the humanoid robotics space, as it and the US continue to compete for everything possible like entitled toddlers. The events prompted a mix of hilarity, trepidation, and ultimately relief when people realised the robots probably aren’t poised to become our overlords anytime soon. That was encapsulated by the event’s most viral moment, as the victorious 100m ‘athlete’ crashed into a wall at full sprint moments after crossing the finish line. Read more
Indian Workers Are Resisting Efforts to Train Their AI Robot Replacements – truthout
The focus of this newsletter might not be the most dystopian entry after all. Remember when it broke in January that India’s factory workers were being forced by their superiors to train AI machines to complete their jobs? Well, after sitting on it, it turns out they’re not too keen on prepping their usurpers. Who wants to feed the tigers appetisers before going in to clean the enclosure? Some companies weren’t quite so barefaced with this agenda and claimed wearable cameras would help with quality control and the consumer experience. Workers at these businesses have now twigged that it’s almost certainly about improving the motor skills and dexterity of machines, and are rightly kicking up a stink. Read more
View this post on Instagram
game face
Fetishists Spent the Weekend Perving Over the New GTA 6 Trailer – vice
Watching that GTA 6 showcase on Netflix got most of us pretty excited, but there are always those who get too excited. Throughout the showcase, social media became awash with feet screenshots, looping GIFs of jiggling booty physics, and forensic-level obsession with the game’s female protagonist Lucia. Despite looking at polygons on a base PS5, thousands unashamedly posted about how they couldn’t wait to indulge in virtual rumping, and Lucia instantly became the flavour of the weekend. Rockstar has probably gone and created the most elaborate open world in gaming history, and yet here the internet is pausing the stream to screenshot white-painted toenails. Suffice to say, when the game actually releases in November, Twitter is guaranteed to become the horniest of dumpster fires. Read more
I’m never taking a shower as Lucia when this game comes out pic.twitter.com/JAvDNU2YCC
— NikTek (@NikTek) August 27, 2026
How Russia’s invasion reshaped the story of Metro 2039 – thred
Ukrainian studio 4A Games has spent seven years developing Metro 2039, four of them while Russia has been waging war on its doorstep. Developers in Kyiv have worked through power cuts, rocket and drone attacks, relied on generators and batteries, and regularly headed for bomb shelters during air-raid warnings. Unsurprisingly, living through a war also changed the war story they were writing. Executive producer Jon Bloch says practically everything planned for the next Metro changed after the invasion, with the game becoming considerably darker and more interested in the consequences of conflict. Its Russian writer Dmitry Glukhovsky, meanwhile, was sentenced in absentia to eight years in prison after criticising the invasion and remains outside the country. Quite possibly the roughest development cycle of any game ever? Read more
