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Premier League football clubs appear unmoved by threats of prosecution and imprisonment after the retreat of a prominent white-label operator that had supported various shirt-front gambling sponsorships.
Staring down a potential £3.3m fine, Isle of Man-based operator TGP Europe announced it had left the UK market on May 16.
The company had acted as a white-label provider for numerous offshore gambling companies, most of which showed little interest in tapping into the UK’s online gambling market, but needed to tick the necessary regulatory boxes to be allowed to advertise on the shirts or stadium billboards of teams in the English Premier League.
TGP’s exit left several of those brand names without any form of licensing cover and the Gambling Commission said it would be duly writing to the leadership of Premier League and Championship teams AFC Bournemouth, Fulham, Newcastle United, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Burnley, all of whom were partnered with one of TGP's white-label sites.
“Club officers may be liable to prosecution and, if convicted, face a fine, imprisonment or both if they promote unlicensed gambling businesses that transact with consumers in Great Britain,” the regulator said.
Two weeks later, none of the named clubs have issued any statements in response to these warnings and appear to have no intention of dropping their betting partners.
Bournemouth, Fulham and Wolves all appeared with their usual kit and sponsor for the final fixtures of the Premier League season this past weekend.
A reluctance to abandon gambling may be in part because shirt-front gambling sponsorships in football’s top league are not long for this world.
The Premier League has agreed to voluntarily ban deals that establish gambling companies as clubs' main kit sponsors.
However, that prohibition will not kick in until the start of the 2025/26 season in August and, even then, gambling brands are expected to still feature prominently on other parts of a team’s kit, on pitch-side hoardings and on club websites as “official betting partners”.
The UK’s gambling white-label regime has long proved a thorny issue for the Gambling Commission and wider government, with critics pointing to alleged regulatory breaches and dubious owners at the offshore brands that the system facilitated.
Despite the apparent void in regulatory cover for their gambling sponsors, clubs seem unconcerned.
This may be because their brand partners are on safe legal ground, so long as they do not accept UK customers, as some UK lawyers and commentators from the sports industry suggest.
Keith Wyness, the former chief executive of Premier League clubs Everton and Aston Villa, told the Football Insider podcast that the Gambling Commission was attempting to generate “headlines” by warning club bosses of potential sanctions.
“It means these clubs can’t promote these companies to UK fans, who would use the UK website,” said Wyness.
“A lot of these companies only have international sites and are advertising to the international fans through the exposure of the Premier League.
“I think that’s a case which will stand up. This may be just the gambling regulator wanting headlines, and using football as a way to get them. I don’t think anything will come of this. It’s a bit of a storm in a teacup,” he said.
For its part, the regulator said it will hold clubs to account if their now licence-less sponsors are found to be accepting players in Great Britain “by any means”.
Even players using VPNs to bypass regional restrictions would be noted by the regulator, it warned.
Whether or not the Gambling Commission can follow through on its warnings to clubs that choose to continue with their gambling sponsors is still to be tested, but the very existence of gambling sponsorships in sport is set to come under renewed pressure in the months ahead.
A group of influential MPs recently told Vixio GamblingCompliance that it would be calling on the government to introduce a ban on all gambling marketing and sponsorship in sports.
The All Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Reform has found significant success in the past, including on its calls for online slots stake limits and the creation of a gambling ombudsman.
