Migrants living in asylum hotels have been exposed gambling with taxpayer-funded payment cards.
"Asylum seekers" entering Britain are handed so-called "Aspen" cards by the Home Office upon arrival.
When housed in fully catered hotels, migrants are given £9.95 a week to spend on their card.
Then, if they're moved into self-catered accommodation, they are given £49.18 a week.
The cards and allowances are meant to be used to buy food, clothes or toiletries.
But now, a damning Freedom of Information request by PoliticsHome has uncovered that thousands of migrants have used the cards to gamble away the cash.
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|When housed in fully catered hotels, migrants are given £9.95 a week
Some 6,537 asylum seekers have used Aspen cards in "gambling settings" over the last year across the UK, the request found.
In just one week last November, 227 migrants tried to use, or used, the cards to gamble. That was the highest week on record.
The lowest seven-day period came last July, when 40 migrants tried to beat the odds.
The payment cards only work in chip-and-pin devices - meaning they were only able to be used in physical locations.
As a result, the migrants were found to be using them at casinos, slot machine arcades and National Lottery retailers.
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|Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Mayor Paul Bristow said it 'would be absolutely wrong if they were using money given to them by British taxpayers to waste on gambling or in adult gaming centres'
Their attempts to gamble online with the Aspen cards, however, were blocked.
Reacting to the news, Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Mayor Paul Bristow revealed it was "not unusual" to see small boat migrants at betting shops.
"Peterborough has seen a huge increase in the number of gambling establishments and gaming centres, and a huge increase in men who've arrived across the Channel on small boats," he told PoliticsHome.
"It's not unusual to see the very same men in some of the establishments on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday night.
"There's something going on here. Questions need to be asked. It would be absolutely wrong if they were using money given to them by British taxpayers to waste on gambling or in adult gaming centres."
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|Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Mayor Paul Bristow revealed it was 'not unusual' to see small boat migrants gambling
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp, meanwhile, said: "It is shocking that over 6,000 illegal immigrants have attempted to use hard-working British taxpayers' money to gamble. They have illegally entered this country without needing to - France is safe, and no one needs to flee from there.
"The British taxpayer has put them up in hotels, and now they slap us in the face by using the money they are given to fund gambling.
"These illegal immigrants clearly don't need the money they are given if they are squandering it at casinos and arcades."
GB News has approached the Home Office for comment.