Everton’s sponsor leaves GB amid porn ad probe
The Everton Football Club’s shirt former sponsor waived his license in the UK after investigating ads by porn actress Bonnie Blue.
In a social media video outside Nottingham Trent University, she said she “slept with 180 legally 18-year-olds” with a logo of shares on the screen.
The campaigners urged the Minister of Culture to take action on advertising in order to promote gambling to young people using sexual content.
The Gambling Commission said it would write to Everton to warn it of responsibility to ensure that unlicensed gambling sites promoted on shirts cannot be obtained from the UK.
The regulator also wrote to Nottingham Forest, a former sponsor of Kaiyun, with Leicester City reaching an agreement with bc.game as the two locations are also not permitted in the UK. .
After the Gambling Commission initiated the investigation, the interests of Australian online bookmakers decided to withdraw from the UK.
The BBC learned that Everton has no plans to replace shares in the main shirt sponsor.
The Premier League has attracted a large global audience, and the club often enters sponsorship agreements with companies that do not operate in the UK.
The stock logo appears on Everton football shirts, calling itself “the world’s leading cryptocurrency casino and sports betting.” Although GB users cannot use Bitcoin and other digital currencies, it allows customers to bet on sports or virtual casino games.
It is licensed by a company based in Man Isle of Man, TGP Europe, using the “White Label” agreement, which is often used by global gambling companies that want to launch in the UK without a large amount of infrastructure and development Initial investment.
The Gambling Commission said Stake’s GB business will stop accepting new registrations and will be completely closed on March 11.
“With TGP Europe a strategic decision was reached to exit the White Label Agreement and focus on ensuring local licensing through our internal platform and operations,” the shares said in a statement.
Regulators will warn clubs that their officers could face 51 weeks in prison and unlimited fines if they are found guilty of “illegal gambling website”.
It hopes the club guarantees that they “have done due diligence on white label partners and that consumers in the UK cannot trade with unlicensed sites.”
This could involve clubs specifying these sites to block UK users, including those using virtual private networks (VPNs), who can allow users to access unlicensed websites by masking the country from which country they access the Internet.
It added that if the customer still needs to receive funds after the company is closed, he or she can contact the gambling operator via the operator’s website.
In January, Bonnie Blue’s real name was Tia Billinger, who tried to break the world record with the largest number of people in 12 hours. She was not included in the committee’s investigation, nor was she advised to do something wrong.
The ad was not posted by the official share account and has now been deleted.
Premier League clubs have agreed to use gambling companies as Main shirt sponsor Starting from the end of the 2025-26 season, gambling ads will still be conducted elsewhere, such as shirt sleeves and digital ad hoc.
have Added review Both the government and campaigners have used gambling companies to sponsor football clubs from widespread use of gambling companies.
Research in 2024 It is recommended that the Premier League season opening weekend betting ads are almost three times higher than the previous year.
activist Including former Stoke City player Tony Kelly Warned of the “dark side” of sports betting, including gambling addiction.
Everton declined to comment. The BBC has contacted Leicester City, Nottingham Forest, Bonnie Blue aka Tia Billinger and TPG Europe for comment.
