Premier League football teams could be banned from accepting sponsorship from gambling companies without a UK licence, as ministers look to crack down on black-market betting. Culture secretary Lisa Nandy on Monday said it was “not right that unlicensed gambling operators can sponsor some of our biggest football clubs, raising their profile and potentially drawing fans towards sites that don’t meet our regulatory standards”.
The plans, which will be put out to consultation in the spring,
are intended to reduce harm from gambling and “eliminate unfair competition”
for companies regulated by the Gambling Commission, according to the
government.
Several teams in the English football leagues, including the
top division, have sponsorship arrangements with unlicensed gambling operators.
These partnerships are not prohibited at present, so long as UK customers
cannot access the illicit platforms.
But the Department for Culture, Media and Sport said
ministers were “deeply concerned” that advertising could nevertheless lure UK
consumers towards unlicensed gambling sites that do not adhere to consumer
protection regulations, including mandatory financial vulnerability checks.
Unlicensed gambling sites also do not typically adhere to the “self-exclusion”
policies intended to prevent customers who are concerned about their betting
habits from being able to access gambling sites.
The Premier League promised in 2023 to phase out
front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships by the end of the 2025-26 season. But it
did not ban operators from signing shirtsleeve sponsorships or bar gambling
adverts on pitchside hoardings, despite calls for more action by safer-gambling
campaigners.
Kit sponsorships are lucrative for sports teams. The Premier
League said in 2023 that front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships at eight clubs
delivered a combined £60mn in annual revenues. Last year, football clubs
including Bournemouth, Fulham and Burnley were warned by the Gambling
Commission over match-day shirt sponsorships for sites operated by TGP Europe.
The company had earlier surrendered its UK licence after an investigation found
it failed to carry out “sufficient checks” on its partners and breached
“anti-money laundering rules”.
“Any move to prevent unlicensed gambling operators from
gaining visibility through Premier League sponsorships is a positive step,”
said Fiona Palmer, chief executive of Gamstop, a gambling harm-reduction
non-profit group. The new consultation on sports sponsorships comes after
chancellor Rachel Reeves set out steep tax rises on licensed betting companies
in her November Budget. Companies, including Flutter and Entain, warned that
the increases would lead to worse odds and push punters into the unregulated
market.
The new taxes included raising the levy for remote betting
from 15 per cent to 25 per cent from April 2027. Last year, Reeves said the
measures were intended both to raise tax revenue and target gambling harms. The
Office for Budget Responsibility, the fiscal watchdog, estimated that the
additional gambling taxes would raise £1.1bn by the end of the current
parliament, even as it acknowledged that some of the expected tax yield would
be reduced owing to “potential substitution to the illicit market”.
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