GoKawiilAn investigation by 9to5Mac reveals dozens of apps that disguise gambling platforms as simple games and utilities. Here are the details.
Betting platforms pose as simple apps
Brazilian users browsing the App Store rankings in categories such as Navigation, Travel, and Weather have noticed a growing number of poorly made games appearing among the top results, many of them featuring AI-generated illustrations of animals as their app icons.
As it turns out, these are so-called jacket apps, which are just a front for hidden betting and gambling apps.
A 9to5Mac investigation has uncovered more than 60 apps that behave exactly as depicted in their App Store screenshots when accessed from virtually anywhere in the world, except Brazil.
When opened from a Brazilian IP address, the same apps instead reveal online betting platforms, as shown in the example below, which is currently the top app in the Weather category:
Most of the apps are published by developer accounts with only a single App Store listing. Many of the developer names appear to be common in Vietnam and other countries, rather than Brazil.
The apps also tend to use similar (and, in some cases, identical) privacy policies, have generally no recorded updates, and are roughly 15MB in size.
Digging deeper, 9to5Mac found a public GitHub repository containing instructions for a Cursor agent to create simple, vibe-coded apps that serve as fronts for the betting platforms.
The instructions call for each app to include three to five visible interfaces, use a marketable name and animal-themed icon (a dragon, ox, rabbit, rat, or tiger), and support remotely controlled routing to either the local app, an in-app web page, or an external website.
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