Brighton & Hove Albion football club owner Tony Bloom has confirmed that his syndicate placed millions of pounds worth of bets through the gambling accounts of Reform UK adviser George Cottrell. This admission comes in a document filed to the High Court, where Bloom also acknowledges that he, Cottrell and a former employee, Ryan Dudfield, had an agreement to split the winnings.
However, Bloom claims that Dudfield, who is suing him and his syndicate, is not owed any further share of the millions made from this arrangement. Bloom states that Dudfield received a £60,000 “nuisance payment” in July 2023 to settle any claims he had against Bloom, after Dudfield had already “cashed out” his position in December 2022.
The dispute has shed light on the largely hidden operations and vast sums of money that power one of the world’s most successful betting operations. Bloom, the majority shareholder and chair of the Premier League club, has made his fortune from gambling.
Dudfield, a professional gambler who used to work for Bloom, introduced his former boss to Cottrell. Dudfield is now pursuing a case against Bloom and his syndicate, claiming that he is owed potentially millions of pounds from the arrangement they reached, in which bets were placed for Bloom through Cottrell’s account.
In his defence, Bloom states that the syndicate was entitled to a 60% share, while Dudfield and Cottrell were entitled to 40% between them, with Dudfield and Cottrell receiving 7% and 33% respectively. Bloom’s syndicate made millions of dollars from betting using accounts in Cottrell’s name, with net winnings of $3.7 million from August to December 2022, and another $2.4 million until October 2025.
Bloom denies the syndicate is “secretive,” but confirms it keeps “information barriers” between departments and those who place bets at Starlizard Consulting, which operates the syndicate. The defence also notes that membership of the syndicate was sometimes given as a perk to employees, though there are also non-employee members.
The case has highlighted the complex and high-stakes world of professional gambling, where successful gamblers like Bloom often use “whales” like Cottrell to place bets on their behalf to avoid being shut out of betting sites.
