Key Takeaways
An audit identified 448 expired domains that had been rebuilt as gambling sites, rising to 485 in a subsequent check.
The Queen’s Green Canopy website redirects to a page promoting Indonesian online slots.
Researchers found 125 gambling sites on domains that previously attracted government backlinks.
A website once used to encourage tree planting in Queen Elizabeth II’s honor now sends visitors to online slot promotions, showing how gambling businesses can infiltrate web addresses whose reputations were built by public campaigns.
Its transformation features in research announced by Backlinking.com on Oct. 12, which tracked thousands of expired-domain auctions and identified hundreds of addresses being used for gambling content.
From Royal Tree Campaign to Online Gambling Slots
The Queen’s Green Canopy was created to mark the Queen’s 2022 Platinum Jubilee.
According to Backlinking.com’s case study, its domain sold for $34,001 in July 2025.
The old campaign content remained visible for roughly a year before researchers recorded a redirect to an Indonesian slot promotion in August 2026.
The domain also carried a substantial legacy of links.
Backlinking.com reported that an August snapshot identified 2,022 referring domains, including 436 government domains.
The destination has since changed from the address documented in the August case study
Hundreds of Domains Repurposed for Gambling
Backlinking.com examined 3,692 recorded auction sales worth $22.3 million, covering transactions of at least $3,000 between January 2024 and May 2026.
Its initial audit identified 448 domains rebuilt directly as gambling or betting sites, representing 12.1% of the sample.
Of the 746 domains that had government backlinks at the time of sale, 125 were subsequently classified as gambling sites.
The Oct. 12 announcement also reported a follow-up check 30 days later — during that period, 170 domains became gambling pages while 133 stopped, increasing the total to 485.
Vote Leave and the UN Health Website Also Feature
The research documented a similar change on voteleavetakecontrol.org, which was formerly used by the designated Leave campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum.
Backlinking.com recorded a $46,001 sale on Nov. 3, 2025.
An archived homepage from Vote Leave’s website on Jan. 1, 2026, showed a guide to casinos outside the GamStop self-exclusion scheme.
However, the researchers later encountered an access-blocking page, which was also seen by CCN’s checks.
Archived homepage from Vote Leave’s website on January 1 showed it had been taken over by GamStop Casinos | Source: Wayback Machine
Another case concerned everywomaneverychild.org, previously associated with a global health movement launched under the UN secretary-general.
The researchers recorded its sale for $25,500 in October 2025 and an August 2026 redirect chain that ended on a page with an Indonesian casino brand in its title.
The Value Lies in Links Left Behind
The commercial attraction is the network of links an established website has accumulated.
A council, school, or charity may link to a useful resource and leave that recommendation in place for years.
If the address changes hands, the same link can lead to entirely different content.
“When a charity or campaign domain expires, the links that other websites gave it do not expire with it,” Backlinking.com’s Aaron Seminoff said in the report.
Google’s spam policies explicitly address expired domains that are purchased and repurposed primarily to manipulate search rankings with low-value content.
For example, casino content placed on a former elementary school website will violate the site’s policies and may result in a loss of search visibility.
CCN previously reported that multiple NHS trust websites linked patients to MyTherappy, a former health resource repurposed for offshore casino content.
The new audit suggests that this problem is now extending across charities, educational resources, and public campaigns.
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