High Court Strikes Out Entain's Copyright Claims Against Matched Betting Sites

Mr Justice Cawson found Entain could not say who drew the Coral and Ladbrokes logos, when, or how it came to own them, eleven months into the case. The trade mark claims over 18 marks go on to trial.

• The High Court struck out Entain's copyright infringement claims against the companies behind the Outplayed, OddsMonkey, Team Profit and Team Casino matched betting websites in a judgment handed down on 10 September
• Mr Justice Cawson found the pleading did not identify the authors, dates or ownership chain for the Coral, Ladbrokes and casino-brand logos and websites, adopting counsel's line that "authorship-based qualification fails for want of authors"
• The strike-out takes effect only if Entain fails to file compliant amended particulars within a period the court will set; the judge said it was not appropriate to start collecting assignments "as late in the day as the case management conference"
• Entain's trade mark infringement claims over some 18 registered marks survive, and the defendants' counterclaim for invalidity and non-use revocation stays in the case
• Entain told NEXT.io the matched betting model is "parasitic" and that it has "strong grounds" for its claim

Entain Sued the Matched Betting Sites, and the Copyright Half Has Just Fallen Over

Entain's attempt to use intellectual property law against the businesses that teach bettors how to turn its bonuses into cash has lost half of its case at the first substantive hearing.

In a judgment handed down on 10 September in Entain Operations Limited and others v Liquidity Trading Limited and others, Mr Justice Cawson, sitting in the Intellectual Property List of the High Court, acceded to the defendants' application to strike out Entain's copyright claims. The claimants are Entain Operations, LC International, Ladbrokes Betting & Gaming and a fourth group company; the defendants are two Gibraltar companies, Liquidity Trading and Liquidity PA, and Samuel Stoffel, which between them operate the Outplayed, OddsMonkey, Team Profit and Team Casino websites. The judgment describes matched betting as placing a qualifying bet to unlock a bookmaker's bonus, laying the same outcome on an exchange, and repeating the process "in the expectation of converting most of the bonus value into cash".

Entain's case, brought in the United Kingdom in 2025, is that the sites do not merely describe bookmakers' offers but use its brands within their own commercial service: the links that take a customer to a Coral or Ladbrokes promotion carry the Entain logos, and the sites reproduce screenshots of Entain's own pages. That, Entain says, infringes both its registered trade marks and its copyright in the logos and websites. The defendants describe themselves as providers of information, training and educational guidance about matched betting, rely on the referential-use defence in the Trade Marks Act, and counterclaim to invalidate some of the marks and revoke others for non-use.

No Authors, No Dates, No Chain of Title

The defendants did not attack the trade mark claims, which they accept are properly pleaded and have a real prospect of success. Their application went to the copyright claims alone, and it succeeded on the pleading. Entain had argued that ownership could be inferred because it acquired the businesses and brands through corporate acquisitions, owns the registered marks, has used the brands openly for many years, and faces no competing claim, and that if ownership could not be shown it was at least an exclusive licensee.

The judge disagreed. The defendants had pointed out that the Ladbrokes logo derives from designs dating back to the 1970s, that the Coral logo dates from at least 1991 and was assigned between group companies in 2019, and that the logos were largely designed by outside agencies rather than employees, none of which Entain's particulars addressed. Adopting the submission of Simon Malynicz KC for the defendants, the judgment records that "authorship-based qualification fails for want of authors, and publication-based qualification fails for want of a publication and a publication date and circumstances", in a pleading "that has already been amended once to deal with precisely this topic".

On Entain's statement that it was in the process of obtaining the necessary assignments, the judge was direct: "I do not consider that it can be appropriate for claimants, as late in the day as the case management conference in a case and after the proceedings have been on foot for some 11 months or so, to say that they are in the process of obtaining the requisite assignments without explaining why this could not have been done before now." He struck out the copyright allegations, but provided that the strike-out should take effect only if Entain fails to file compliant amended particulars within a prescribed period. Entain's own application to strike out parts of the defence largely failed, save for the deletion of one statutory reference. An Entain spokesperson told NEXT.io the company does not comment on active litigation but regards the matched betting model as "parasitic" and has "strong grounds" for its claim.

The Case Was Always About the Trade Marks, and Those Are Intact

The copyright claim was the easier one to plead and the harder one to prove, and its collapse changes the litigation less than the headline suggests. What Entain wants is a ruling that a matched betting site which displays a Coral logo next to "Bet £10, get £30" is using the mark in the course of trade for identical services, not merely referring to it. That is a trade mark question, it is fully pleaded, and it goes to trial with the defendants' referential-use, honest-concurrent-use and acquiescence defences and their revocation counterclaim alongside it. The copyright strike-out matters for a different reason: it tells every large operator that a portfolio of acquired brands does not come with a provable chain of title, and that a court will not infer one from decades of use. Entain has been given a window to fix that. Whether it can find the designers of a 1970s logo, and the assignments, in short order is an open question, and the alternative is to let the copyright claim go and fight on the marks alone.

A Win for the Sites Is Not Yet a Win for Matched Betting

Outplayed and OddsMonkey will present the judgment as vindication, and on the pleading point it is. But the court has not said anything about whether matched betting is lawful, whether the sites' use of the logos is referential, or whether the bonus-abuse framing Entain prefers has any purchase. Those questions were not before it. The judge's remark that, had he not struck out the copyright claim, he would likely have required the defendants to redraft their own introductory narrative, which Entain's counsel said "read more like a press release", suggests a court impatient with both sides' advocacy in the pleadings. The trial will decide whether an operator can use its trade marks to shut down a service built entirely around its promotions, and that is the ruling the rest of the industry is waiting for.

Entain's brands are its case. The judgment says it has not yet proved it owns them in the way copyright requires, and has given it one chance to do so.