Former journalists’ names appear on AI casino articles after Clickout cuts
Ben Touati said 28 gambling articles were published under his Esports Insider byline after his access was revoked and employment ended.
Former journalists at gaming and esports websites linked to Clickout Media said casino articles generated with AI continued to appear under their names after they had lost access to the sites or been made redundant. The allegations concern Esports Insider and Gambling Insider, which were hit by manual Google penalties that reduced their visibility in search results.
Press Gazette reported that at least five writers appeared to have disappeared from Esports Insider and been replaced by an “ESI Editorial Team” byline. Articles published under that collective byline scored 100% AI-generated on Pangram’s detector, while Gambling Insider carried casino and betting promotions that appeared to be wholly or partly AI-written.
The most specific allegation involves Ben Touati, a former Esports Insider journalist. Twenty-eight casino-related articles appeared under his byline on the site’s German-language pages, with last-update dates from May 15 to July 14. Touati said Clickout revoked his system access on March 9 and that his employment ended on March 23, making it impossible for him to have written or altered the later material.
Touati told Bit.Fan that he found five articles he did not write on his author page on May 26. They were published between 5:39 a.m. and 6 a.m., one a day through May 29. He filed a GDPR complaint on June 2 alleging misuse of his personal data; the byline on those five pieces was subsequently removed and replaced with another writer’s name.
The cases sit within a business model that Press Gazette characterised as parasite SEO: acquiring or controlling established editorial sites, using their existing search authority to promote casino affiliates, and reducing editorial staff once the sites lose search value. Google says human reviewers can impose manual actions for breaches including site reputation abuse, which can lower rankings or remove pages from results. Such penalties can be appealed.
Clickout said it did not own Esports Insider, although employees linked the title to Clickout and its legal entity Finixo. The company told Bit.Fan that it used AI-assisted content “where appropriate,” with human checks and editing, and was working to improve both its AI agents and editorial processes.
Accounts for the business trading as Finixio, chaired by Adam Grunwerg, recorded turnover of about £2 million for the year to September 2025, down from £40 million a year earlier, alongside a £1.7 million loss. The accounts said all employees had been terminated at the end of 2024, indicating that the current operation may sit in another corporate structure.