Nobody Can Say Who Funded George Cottrell’s $9mn Trump Bet

A betting account carrying George Cottrell’s name took in $9 million in cryptocurrency from senders nobody has identified, the Financial Times reported, adding a financial mystery to a scandal that already has Westminster’s standards watchdog and Britain’s crime agency circling the same man. Cottrell, the longtime aide to Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, used the account to make a fortune betting on Donald Trump’s 2024 election win.

Cottrell’s identity was never really the puzzle. On-chain investigators had already tied him to the wallet months earlier. What nobody, not the platform, not Parliament, not Britain’s National Crime Agency, has been able to answer is where the money that funded his winning bet actually came from.

Nine Million Dollars, No Sender

The wallet trades under the handle GCottrell93 on Polymarket, a crypto based prediction market where users buy shares in the outcome of real world events instead of placing a conventional bet. In the run up to the November 2024 US election, the account spent roughly $9 million buying shares that paid out if Trump won.

He won. The position paid out about $13 million, which is the figure that first circulated when blockchain sleuth ZachXBT flagged the account. “He’s been an adviser to Nigel Farage, is known for high-stakes gambling, and was found guilty of wire fraud,” ZachXBT wrote, saying the wallet belonged to Cottrell with high confidence.

Later on-chain accounting narrowed the actual profit to about $4.4 million once the roughly $9 million stake is subtracted, a figure that lines up with the arithmetic. Across 23 tracked predictions on the platform, including a rough stretch of Middle East war bets that cost him about $655,000 in early 2026, Cottrell’s account was still sitting on a net profit near $3.4 million as of March. That does not answer where the original $9 million entering the account came from. That is the specific finding the Financial Times is now reporting: receiving $9mn in crypto from unidentified sources, months after the wallet had already made him famous.

A Market With No One Asking Who Sent It

Part of why that question has gone unanswered for so long is structural. Polymarket settles exclusively in a crypto dollar token and does not run identity checks on its users, a gap that came into sharp focus earlier this year when on-chain analysts caught a cluster of wallets front running one of ZachXBT’s own insider trading exposes.

That February episode involved a Polymarket market asking which crypto firm ZachXBT would name next, and it drew nearly $40 million in bets before he published his findings naming Axiom’s insiders. Because the exchange keeps no identity records, tracing who actually placed the winning wagers proved close to impossible without the company’s own cooperation.

The same anonymity applies to Cottrell’s account. Britain’s Gambling Commission told the crypto outlet Decrypt it does not comment on individual businesses, but pointed to its public register of licensed operators, which does not include Polymarket. The regulator has separately said prediction markets of this kind would likely need to be licensed as a betting intermediary, similar to a betting exchange, though no formal action against the platform has followed. Portugal’s gambling regulator ordered Polymarket blocked in January over unlicensed betting and insider trading concerns, and an Argentine court ordered app stores to restrict it the following March. The UK has done neither.

The Same Name Keeps Showing Up in Reform’s Accounts

The crypto wallet is not the only unexplained flow of money connected to Cottrell this year. In late May 2024, he opened an account with Oneify, a little known firm that moves crypto and conventional currency across borders. Within a fortnight, the platform had carried a £1 million payment, half of which reached Reform UK, that the National Crime Agency has been unable to trace to its true source.

Richard Tice, who led Reform UK at the time, says the money came from Cottrell’s mother, Fiona Cottrell, and passed through his company Britain Means Business before £500,000 of it went to the party. The Guardian has reported that Fiona Cottrell received several six figure cash tranches from an unidentified source shortly before making that payment. Whether any of it traces back to George Cottrell’s own accounts remains unknown.

Three separate vehicles, three unexplained origins, and one recurring name attached to all of them.

The Casino Behind the Casino

Cottrell’s involvement in offshore crypto gambling goes beyond his own Polymarket account. The Times has reported he is a key behind the scenes figure at Tether.bet, an online casino and bookmaker registered in Curaçao with offices in Montenegro and payments processed through Cyprus, part owned by billionaire Reform donor Christopher Harborne. Local politicians have said a crypto ATM inside an associated casino, the subject of a 2023 police investigation, belonged to Cottrell.

He is also linked to a wider network of payment operators around that world.

• Christopher Harborne – the billionaire part owner of Tether.bet who gave Farage a secret £5 million gift before the 2024 election, now the subject of a separate Parliamentary Standards Commissioner probe
• Daniel Jefferies – a British citizen seeking residency in Monaco who made his money supplying payment processing systems to gambling and pornography companies, and who declined to comment when approached
• Ozan Ozerk – a Cypriot Norwegian millionaire who owns SettleGo, Oneify’s UK partner, whose separate corporate network is under Turkish investigation over allegations of laundering proceeds of illegal betting
• Fiona Cottrell – George’s mother, credited by Richard Tice as the true source of the Reform UK donation routed through Oneify

Reform UK has taken an openly pro-crypto stance, becoming the first major British political party to accept crypto donations in June 2025, even as questions mount over money moving through people connected to its leader.

From Federal Sting to Farage’s Right Hand

Cottrell’s relationship with unexplained money is not new. In July 2016, a month after standing beside Farage on the day of the Brexit referendum, he was arrested in the United States and charged with 21 offenses, including conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, blackmail and extortion.

He had offered to launder money for people he believed were drug traffickers, demonstrating his system by moving $20,000 through an associate in Colorado, then demanded 130 Bitcoin, worth roughly $80,000 at the time, to keep quiet about it. His clients were undercover federal agents. Cottrell pleaded guilty to a single wire fraud count in a plea deal and served eight months in prison.

He is now reportedly seeking a pardon from the same president he later profited from betting on. In the years between, he became, by his own account, a gambler who started betting at age 12 and was expelled from Malvern College at 16 for it. A lawsuit reported by trade outlet CasinoBeats claims a former employee of the betting syndicate Starlizard is suing its operator over profits from wagers placed using Cottrell as a proxy. Court filings in that case describe him bluntly: “Cottrell was not a particularly successful gambler, and frequently lost large sums of money.” He has reportedly lost as much as $20 million in a single night of poker.

Through all of it, he has remained, in Farage’s own words, close enough to be treated “like a son.”

The Regulatory Net Closing, Slowly

The political cost is already showing. Liberal Democrat MP Josh Babarinde has referred Farage to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards over benefits, including staff, security and a five-storey London townhouse, that Cottrell provided before the 2024 election but that Farage never registered beyond a single £9,253 Belgium trip. Reform MP Robert Jenrick has defended the arrangement as purely personal, though business cards bearing Cottrell’s name have since surfaced connecting him more formally to the party’s operation.

What we know

• ZachXBT has identified the GCottrell93 wallet as Cottrell’s with high confidence
• The account spent about $9 million buying Trump shares and banked roughly $4.4 million in profit when he won
• The National Crime Agency has been unable to trace the source of a separate £1 million payment linked to Cottrell that partly funded Reform UK
• Cottrell served eight months in a US prison after a 2016 wire fraud conviction

What remains unconfirmed

• Who sent the $9 million in crypto into the betting account
• Whether that money has any connection to the untraced Reform donation funds
• Whether Cottrell’s role at Tether.bet breaches UK gambling law
• Whether the Parliamentary Standards Commissioner will find Farage in breach of the rules

None of Britain’s regulators currently has a clean run at the underlying question. The Gambling Commission polices licensed operators, and Polymarket isn’t one. The National Crime Agency is following the Oneify money, not the Polymarket wallet. The standards commissioner can only rule on what Farage declared, not on what funded Cottrell’s own accounts. For now, the Polymarket wallet keeps trading, and the $9 million that built it still has no name attached.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Polymarket legal to use from the UK?

Polymarket holds no licence from the UK Gambling Commission, which does not comment on individual operators but confirms the platform is absent from its register of licensed businesses. The regulator has said prediction markets like it would likely need to be licensed as a betting intermediary, but no enforcement action has followed, unlike in Portugal and Argentina, where regulators have already ordered blocks.

What exactly did George Cottrell plead guilty to in the US?

Cottrell pleaded guilty to a single count of wire fraud in 2017 after federal prosecutors reduced 21 original charges, including money laundering, blackmail and extortion. He had offered money laundering services to people he believed were drug traffickers, proved his system worked with a real $20,000 transfer through a Colorado associate, then demanded 130 Bitcoin to stay silent, not realising his clients were undercover federal agents.

Have Cottrell or Polymarket responded to the Financial Times findings?

Neither has issued a public response to the specific claim about unidentified crypto senders. Reform UK has previously told reporters that Cottrell holds no formal role with the party and directed questions about his personal dealings to him directly.

How does Tether.bet reportedly move UK customers’ money?

Tether.bet is not registered in the UK, but The Times has reported it processes wealthy British customers’ deposits through two UK registered intermediary companies, Global G Corp Ltd and Fispay Ltd, an arrangement that reportedly allows it to take UK bets despite holding no domestic gambling licence.