iGaming Business – The UK Gambling Commission has written to a host of sports governing bodies to outline its position over teams displaying advertisements from non-licensed gambling websites.

The number of partnerships between online gaming operators and professional sports teams has increased in recent years, with some teams entering into commercial agreements with remote gambling operators that do not have a UK licence.

Under new gambling regulations, companies that wish to operate remotely and offer services to consumers in the UK market should gain a licence from the Gambling Commission.

Nick Tofiluk, director of regulatory operations at the Gambling Commission, said in the letter that teams that do have partnerships with such operators should not allow them to advertise without “making it clear in the product advertised and in reality that betting is not available to those in Britain”.

The Gambling Commission warned on of the main risks of maintaining such partnerships when the new regulations come into force is the “risk of committing offences by virtue of an unlicensed third party sponsor failing to prevent consumers based in Great Britain from accessing its services”.

The regulator also said that such partnerships could “impact on the overall effort to combat match fixing through corrupt betting of promoting unlicensed operators in foreign markets”.

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