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White-label gambling powerhouse TGP Europe has abandoned its British licence and stranded numerous foreign partner brands after refusing to pay a £3.3m ($4.4m) Gambling Commission fine and disregarding its demands for reform.
The UK Gambling Commission on Friday (May 16) announced that Isle of Man-based TGP Europe “surrendered its licence after being told it needed to pay a £3.3m penalty and make significant improvements if it wanted to continue trading in Great Britain”.
English football, which has extensive sponsorship arrangements with online gambling websites, is also on notice, with the commission warning club officials of criminal prosecutions, jail time and heavy fines if they facilitate gambling on illegal operations.
Britain-based consumers must not “transact with the sites … by any means”, and the commission will “independently verify [that] effective measures are in place” to prevent such transactions, including spot checks, it said.
The commission is also “seeking assurance from the clubs that they have carried out due diligence on their white label partners”, in general, it said.
The commission said in a statement that TGP Europe had breached anti-money laundering laws and failed to perform “sufficient checks” on some or all of its partner brands in Britain.
The Gambling Commission website shows that TGP Europe now has 31 inactive domains, around half of which were surrendered last week.
Among its violations, TGP Europe failed to perform appropriate due diligence on the beneficial owners of its partners or their finances, and failed to “sufficiently consider” money laundering risk or potential or actual illegal actions associated with partner businesses, the statement said.
Until Thursday, TGP Europe’s licence allowed it to operate remote casino games, take bets on real and virtual events, and manufacture and deploy remote gambling software.
Gambling Commission head of enforcement John Pierce said TGP Europe was “unwilling or unable to meet the regulatory standards we expect from our licensees”.
“Following TGP’s exit [from the British market], several online gambling operators can no longer lawfully offer gambling facilities to consumers located in Great Britain,” Pierce said.
“These sites, previously operating under TGP’s licence, may not provide adequate protection against criminal activity or gambling-related harm and should not be available to [British] consumers with immediate effect.
“All licensed operators with similar arrangements to TGP should take notice of the action taken in this case,” he said.
Among TGP Europe’s 31 domain names now deregistered in Great Britain are several high-visibility brands that sponsor Premier League and other English football teams.
The commission said it has notified Premier League clubs Bournemouth, Fulham, Newcastle United and Wolverhampton Wanderers that they are now hosting unlicensed gambling partners, as well as notifying Championship side Burnley, which has been promoted to the Premier League.
However, Fulham and Leicester continued to display their TGP Europe-linked sponsors (SBOTOP and BC.Game, respectively) on their shirt fronts in weekend games, while the official websites for Newcastle (Sportsbet.io and FUN88), Bournemouth (bj88 and 8xbet), Wolves (DEBET) and Burnley (96.com and BK8) continue to prominently display theirs.
Other English football clubs with TGP Europe sponsorships, such as the Premier League’s Everton (Stake.com) and Nottingham Forest (kaiyun.com), continue to display them on their shirt fronts or websites despite being declared inactive before TGP Europe’s full surrender of licensing last week.
Premier League clubs are scheduled to cease shirt-front gambling sponsorships at the end of the 2026-2027 season, but shirt sleeve and wider sponsor relationships will likely continue.
SBOBet withdraws from Isle of Man
In an apparent precursor incident ahead of TGP Europe’s withdrawal, Celton Manx, the parent company of gambling brand group SBOBet and TGP Europe’s partner on its Britain-facing version, SBOTOP, withdrew its licence from the Isle of Man on May 9.
The departure of TGP Europe’s Isle of Man neighbour from Europe’s offshore-regulated gambling market after almost 17 years appears to be new fallout from a tougher approach to compliance enforcement in Great Britain, the Isle of Man and other UK dependencies that serve as offshore licensing hubs.
The departure follows new raids this year and expulsions in 2024 from the Isle of Man’s online gambling registry amid police investigations into organised crime activity, amid compliance reforms, and attacks from external industry voices on the Isle of Man’s financial and regulatory credibility.
Football journalism website Josimar has alleged that the Isle of Man has served as a “safe haven” for betting companies, and that TGP Europe was established on the island as a beneficial subsidiary of Suncity Group, the once-enormous Asian junket multinational whose mogul, Alvin Chau, was jailed in Macau in early 2023.
TGP Europe previously got into hot water with the Gambling Commission in early 2023, when it was fined more than £316,000, warned and ordered to modify its business practices over years of money laundering compliance failures and problem gambling incidents.
TGP Europe’s Stake.com operation, a white-label arrangement with an Australian partner, fell foul of the authorities in February this year over pornographic references in its promotions. TGP Europe reportedly voluntarily withdrew the service from the British market.
