Sportradar Stock Plunges After Short Sellers Accuse Company of Illegal Activity
Posted on: April 22, 2026, 01:19h.
Last updated on: April 22, 2026, 01:19h.
***Disclosure: Legend Corp., the parent company of Casino.org, is in the process being acquired by Genius Sports, a direct competitor to Sportradar in the sports betting data industry.***
- Sportradar stock tumbles to lowest levels in nearly two years after two research firms issue bearish reports on the company
- The short sellers accuse the Swiss sports betting data provider of engaging with illegal clients
- Muddy Waters says Sportradar “aided and abetted” black market betting around the world
Shares of sports betting data provider Sportradar (NASDAQ: SRAD) plunged Wednesday as two short sellers issued reports on the company, accusing it of engaging in illegal activities.
In midday trading, Sportradar is off 24.52% on volume that’s already more than 5x the daily average — a decline that’s taken the stock to its lowest levels in nearly two years. In separate reports, famed short-selling firm Muddy Waters and Callisto Research accuse Switzerland-based Sportradar of purposefully courting business from black market gaming operators.
Callisto says Sportradar’s “curated image” as a force for good in the sports integrity space is “misleading” given the gravity of the research firm’s findings.
Through examination of hundreds of gambling platforms, we found evidence suggesting that over 270 individual platforms (more than a third of the 800 Sportradar claims to serve) are using Sportradar’s products or services, or explicitly claiming to do so, while operating illegally in regulated or prohibited gambling markets,” according to the Callisto report. “Many of these operators have no license whatsoever.”
Citing an unidentified “senior” employee at Sportradar, Callisto notes the company’s exposure to gray and black market operators may be as high as 30% to 40% of total sales. Previously, analysts and investors viewed Sportradar as one of the dominant names on the business-to-business (B2B) side of the sports betting space with in-play betting leverage and the data sportsbooks needs to power high-margin bets.
Muddy Waters Says Sportradar Doesn’t Shy Away From Illegal Markets
Muddy Waters says it sent investigators masquerading as operators of a startup sportsbook to the recent ICE 2026 gaming conference in Barcelona where those personnel approached sales reps of the sports betting data provider about potentially opening an internet sportsbook in China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam.
The problem is sports wagering is prohibited in those countries, but according to Muddy Waters, the Sportradar staff interacting with the research firm’s investigators didn’t decline the conversations due to the illegality of sports betting in those nations.
“Instead, an Asia-focused sales executive walked us through product offerings tailored to each illegal market, bragged that SRAD ‘serves everyone,’ and offered to introduce us to the Yabo Group — China’s largest illegal gambling operator, whose Cambodian call centers are staffed by trafficked and enslaved workers,” said Muddy Waters in its reportr. “He warned us that Yabo’s people didn’t attend ICE because ‘they would be hunted down.’ Then he offered to make the introduction anyway. This is who SRAD is.”
Sportradar, which has a longstanding partnership with the NBA, among other professional sports leagues, has referred to itself as “the FBI of betting.” Muddy Waters takes issue with that claim, noting as Callisto did that the data provider generates a significant portion of its revenue from black and gray market operators – some of which potentially have ties to human trafficking and organized crime.
“We estimate that illegal operators today deliver approximately 20–40% of total revenues. Using two proprietary code-analysis methodologies developed with cybersecurity experts, supplemented by extensive interviews with former SRAD sales executives, we identified nearly 50 companies as current or recent SRAD clients and collaborators who are operating in illegal markets,” adds Muddy Waters. “These include organized crime-linked 1xBet and FonBet in Russia, Cambodian modern-slavery-linked 8xBet, OKVIP, and SBOBet in Southeast Asia, and the infamous Yabo Group in China. SRAD previously denied supplying 8xBet. We found its Client ID in 8xBet’s source code.”
Sportradar May Have Other Questionable Customers
Separately, Callisto points out that multiple betting platforms using Sportradar technology have ties to a Turkish drug kingpin while others sanctioned by the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) operate out of Russian-controlled Crimea.
Callisto adds that another platform known as Berrybet instructs customers on how to use a cryptocurrency exchange linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Sportradar has previously said it complies with US sanctions.
Callisto also points out that Sportradar CEO Carsten Koerl has been less than forthcoming about his ties to entities that may be on the wrong side of the gaming regulatory spectrum. The research firm says Koerl is chairman of Betgames, a Lithuanian outfit Kazakh officials deemed an illegal betting enterprise. The short seller also said Koerl may have ties to a Russian company accused of running at least one illegal offshore sportsbook.
“We believe Sportradar faces an existential binary outcome: lose its illegal customer base and the associated revenue and profits voluntarily, or lose its licenses involuntarily,” observes Callisto. “Either way, we believe the odds are not in its favor.”
No comments yet