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What is Grape Escape?
During a previous Sphere earnings call, Sphere chair Jim Dolan teased a “broomstick ride with a witch.”
That line got repeated as part of “Wizard 2.0,” with most media outlets assuming it was to be among the production’s new effects.
Our suspicion is that Dolan was referring to an immersive video simulator—likely intended for the lobby before the movie begins.
About Grape Escape
Its findings contained an all-too-familiar combination of ineffective systems, delayed interventions and inadequate source-of-funds controls. One customer placed approximately 4,800 bets in one day and 7,000 the next without being flagged. Another, whose payslips showed monthly earnings of about £2,000, deposited and lost £9,000 in four days.
“What is striking here is the level of activity that apparently failed to trigger effective intervention,” Williams says. “These were obvious indicators requiring further scrutiny, and it is difficult to understand why they did not result in more effective intervention.”
He adds that the recurring weakness is often not an absence of policies but a failure to ensure “technology, algorithms and operational processes actually work in practice”. Some of the QuinnBet issues followed a platform migration, underlining the need to retest controls whenever systems change.
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Last month, meanwhile, Betfred announced plans to shutter 132 of its UK betting shops, reducing its workforce by over 600 employees.
Betfred CEO Jo Whittaker said: “We have tried hard to protect all our sites and the colleagues who work in them, but the combined impact of higher employer National Insurance contributions, wage inflation, increases in gambling taxes and wider economic uncertainty has left us with no choice.”
Kyle has been with Clarion since December 2023, joining from the world of sports journalism, subsequently becoming a LatAm-facing senior reporter with iGB.
