Beware betting website crooks

Almost 100 unauthorised firms have been named on a warning list published by the Financial Conduct Authority.

They are all operating binary options – two-way bets on whether the value of a commodity or currency will go up or down over a set period, sometimes just minutes.

This is a field awash with crooks running short-lived websites that refuse to pay out winnings and then disappear.

“Many of these firms claim to be based in the UK but the FCA believes that most of the addresses they provide are false and that the firms are actually based overseas,” the watchdog states.

One that I’ve exposed called Binary St used pictures of red buses and London landmarks but was run from Israel and registered more than 8,000 miles away in the Marshall Islands in the Pacific.

If you deal with an unauthorised firm you will have no recourse to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme if the deal goes sour.