Alphonso Davies AI media incident — Sep 2026

On September 11, 2026, an offshore gambling platform known as Oxibet promoted an advertisement on Instagram featuring deepfake content involving the family of professional soccer player Alphonso Davies. The ad falsely depicted Davies’s father being arrested by Edmonton police before being released after allegedly revealing that his wealth originated from legal gambling proceeds. The fabricated video featured an AI-generated image of Davies’s father encouraging viewers to visit the site, alongside an endorsement from an AI-generated image of musician Drake.

What happened

The campaign utilized AI synthesis to create deceptive imagery of public figures to drive traffic to an unregulated, offshore gambling site based in Comoros. The video narrative claimed that Davies’s father had won $3 million through the platform, an assertion that his agent, Nedal Huoseh, explicitly denied, stating that the family does not gamble and that Davies does not participate in betting, alcohol, or cannabis promotions.

This incident highlights the growing challenge of synthetic media in advertising, as the unregulated offshore site bypassed provincial regulations that strictly govern how celebrity athletes can interact with gambling promotions. While Alberta has established a regulated iGaming market with 31 legal sites, platforms like Oxibet operate outside these legal frameworks, often using aggressive and deceptive tactics to acquire users. Davies’s representation has condemned the ad as lies and noted the increasing difficulty of countering AI-generated misinformation due to a current lack of regulations.