Consultation on banning unlicensed gambling sponsorship

Under current legislation, businesses are able to enter into advertising and sponsorship arrangements with gambling operators which are not licensed by the Gambling Commission, so long as those operators’ services cannot be accessed by consumers in Great Britain. Unlicensed operators prevent access to their services by geo-blocking their websites. However, this can be circumvented by consumers using a virtual private network (VPN). This has become a particular issue over the past year in the sporting sector, particularly football, as the result of changes in the advertising landscape.

We want to change this. The current legislation undermines the gambling licensing and advertising regulatory frameworks, which aim to protect consumers in Great Britain and reduce the risk of money-laundering and crime. Specifically, our rationale for change is driven by three core objectives:

• to protect consumers, especially young people and those who are vulnerable, from unregulated platforms that may not offer adequate player protections or fraud recourse;
• to defend the integrity of our domestic market by ensuring advertising footprints are exclusive to operators who are required to adhere to the Gambling Commission’s Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP); and
• in the sport sector, to eliminate money laundering vulnerabilities within football clubs and agents that have been flagged within our National Risk Assessment.

We are therefore consulting on legislative changes to ban unlicensed gambling sponsorships and advertising in Great Britain across all sectors, including sport.