12.1% of High-Value Expired Domains Were Rebuilt as Gambling Sites

More than one in eight high-value expired domains examined by SEO publication Backlinking.com were repurposed for gambling or betting content after being sold at auction.

The study reviewed 3,692 expired domains sold for at least $3,000 each between January 2024 and May 2026. Buyers spent a combined $22.3 million on the domains.

In the initial audit, 448 domains, or 12.1% of the sample, had become gambling or betting sites.

A follow-up check 30 days later found that the number had increased to 485, equivalent to approximately 13.1% of the entire sample.

Former UN and Political Campaign Domains Became Casino Sites

Some of the most prominent examples previously belonged to charities, public initiatives and political campaigns.

The former domain of Every Woman Every Child, a global health initiative launched under the UN Secretary-General, sold for $25,500 in October 2025 and later began redirecting to a site associated with an Indonesian online casino.

The domain previously used by Vote Leave, the official campaign supporting the UK's departure from the European Union in the 2016 referendum, sold for $46,001 in November 2025.

Within weeks, archived versions showed the domain hosting content promoting casinos available to UK players outside the GamStop self-exclusion system.

Another example was the Queen's Green Canopy, the tree-planting initiative created for Queen Elizabeth II's Platinum Jubilee. Its former domain sold for $34,001 and later redirected visitors to an Indonesian online slots page.

Backlinking.com stressed that the organisations previously associated with these addresses no longer own the domains and have no connection with their current content.

Government Backlinks Appear Particularly Valuable

The study suggests that inherited backlink profiles are a major reason gambling marketers compete for expired domains.

Websites can accumulate links from government agencies, universities, charities, newspapers and other established sources over many years. Those links can remain online even after the original owner allows the domain registration to expire.

Among the 3,692 domains studied, 746 had at least one backlink from a government website when they were sold.

Of those, 125, or approximately 16.8%, subsequently became gambling sites.

Backlinking.com argues that buyers are effectively paying for the authority associated with these existing links rather than simply for the domain names themselves.

Gambling Share Rises With Auction Price

The likelihood that an expired domain would subsequently host gambling content increased with its auction value.

Approximately 10% of domains sold for less than $5,000 became gambling sites.

For domains selling for $25,000 or more, the proportion reached 20% or higher.

The pattern was also particularly visible among .org domains, which are commonly associated with charities and non-profit organisations.

Of 701 .org domains in the dataset, 127, or 18.1%, became gambling sites. The equivalent rate for .com domains was 10.6%, with 292 of 2,745 repurposed for gambling.

Examples identified by the publication included Indonesian online casinos, casino comparison pages aimed at UK players seeking operators outside GamStop and offshore sportsbook guides targeting users in Texas.

Google Classifies Some Repurposing as Expired Domain Abuse

Google explicitly addresses the practice in its search spam policies.

The company defines expired domain abuse as purchasing an expired domain and repurposing it primarily to manipulate search rankings with content that provides little or no value to users.

One example in Google's own policy is casino-related content appearing on a domain previously used by an elementary school.

However, purchasing and reusing an expired domain is not automatically a violation. Google's policy focuses on cases where the primary purpose is exploiting the domain's previous reputation to manipulate search visibility.

Sites found violating Google's spam policies can rank lower or disappear from search results.

Gambling Count Rose to 485 Within 30 Days

Backlinking.com's second review also demonstrates how quickly ownership strategies can change after an expired domain is acquired.

Within 30 days, 865 of the 3,692 domains had changed status. The publication recorded 170 becoming gambling pages while 133 previously classified as gambling stopped serving such content.

The net effect increased the gambling total from 448 to 485.

The findings are based on Backlinking.com's own classification methodology, using live websites, redirects and archived versions to determine how domains were being used.

They do not measure traffic, rankings or gambling revenue generated by the sites. Instead, the research provides a snapshot of how frequently valuable expired domains and their inherited backlink profiles are being incorporated into iGaming SEO strategies.