SBC News Voice of the Sports Betting Industry
UK law practitioners have questioned the legality of new advertising and marketing guidance set by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) with regards to sports betting sponsorship. Legal commentators have questioned the monitoring procedures of the new guidance and whether it can be applied to current sponsorship deals within UK sports.
The UKGC’s new guidance on sponsorship states that sports clubs and bodies that have partnered up with unlicensed operators must make their public aware that the services offered are not available to UK consumers.
Additionally sports clubs must enusre that ensure that unlicensed offshore betting companies that they partner with block British consumers from accessing their websites and services.
“Gambling law specialist Susan Biddle of Pinsent Masons has questioned the legal basis for some of the Commission’s recent guidance and said that this was likely to create significant challenges for sports clubs and bodies.”
“For example, would players’ shirts, replica shirts and stadium boards which carry a sponsor’s logo each have to include an asterisk to a disclaimer somewhere else on the shirt or board? – such a requirement would seem in practice to mean that sponsorship or other advertising by unlicensed offshore remote gambling operators will not be possible even if as a matter of practice they can achieve 100% successful blocking of British consumers,” Biddle said.
The UKGC has written to sports clubs and governing bodies warning them that they could be held accountable for the offence of unlawful advertising if they do not comply with new advertising guidance measures on unlicensed betting/gambling operators. The UKGC advised sports clubs and bodies to only promote UK licensed operators.
