Curacao Shirt Sponsors: The UK Licence Gap Fans Should Know
A government consultation that could make it a criminal offence for British sports clubs to take sponsorship money from gambling operators without a UK Gambling Commission licence closed on 9 September, with a decision still pending. In the meantime, at least one Premier League club has signed a new deal with an unlicensed operator, underlining exactly the gap in player protection the consultation is meant to close.
What’s actually changed
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport
opened a consultation on proposals to ban sponsorship and advertising arrangements with gambling operators that are not licensed by the Gambling Commission on 15 July 2026
, following an initial announcement back in February.
The consultation covers unlicensed gambling sponsorship and advertising in Great Britain across all sectors, not only sport.
The proposal would use secondary legislation under the Gambling Act 2005 to criminalise the promotion of unlicensed gambling operators in Great Britain, affecting any clubs, leagues, events, venues, or other parties involved in displaying such advertising or sponsorship.
This would prohibit physical advertising assets including pitch-side hoardings and tournament programmes, as well as kit and equipment sponsorship and venue infrastructure and naming rights.
Notably,
white-label partnerships look set to escape the ban, since a lawyer explained that arrangement involves someone legitimately taking money from British consumers in a compliant way.
The consultation ran for eight weeks and closed at 11:59pm on 9 September 2026
, but no government decision has yet been published. Campaigners haven’t waited quietly:
the Local Health and Global Profits research consortium urged DCMS to extend the ban to licensed operators too, and to cover digital advertising rather than just physical sponsorship, citing what researchers call the “balloon effect.”
Days after the consultation closed,
Entain had written to ten Premier League clubs with unlicensed ties, yet Sunderland AFC nonetheless signed a deal with Shuffle, an unlicensed crypto casino.
What it means for you
If your club’s kit, boards or programme carry a betting brand you don’t recognise from UK television advertising, it’s worth checking its licensing status before you deposit anywhere.
The core rule for British consumers is that a UKGC licence is permission to serve players located in Great Britain, while a Curacao licence is authorisation under Curacao’s own regime – holding one does not imply holding the other.
An English-language website, GBP odds, or football tie-ins prove nothing about UK authorisation on their own.
Practically, that distinction matters because the safeguards you rely on from a UKGC-licensed brand – GamStop self-exclusion, affordability checks, access to UK alternative dispute resolution if something goes wrong – are tied to the licence, not the shirt logo.
The UK Gambling Commission states plainly that overseas businesses need its licence if they provide remote gambling to consumers in Great Britain.
An operator sponsoring a club you follow may or may not meet that bar, and
grouping every Curacao brand together is a mistake, since licensing status changes at the level of the exact domain and operating company.
The bigger picture
The scale of the issue is significant:
government estimates indicated that approximately 40% of Premier League clubs had sponsorship or advertising agreements with unlicensed gambling operators during the 2025/26 season.
That sits alongside the Premier League’s own voluntary move away from front-of-shirt gambling deals, and the wider Illegal Gambling Taskforce work DCMS has been running to squeeze the black market out of UK sport and advertising.
With the consultation window closed and legislation not expected to arrive before
the government’s target of introducing the ban during August 2027, ahead of the 2027/28 football season
, there’s a real gap between now and any new law taking effect. Until then, the responsibility for checking whether a sponsor is properly licensed – and therefore whether GamStop and UK safer-gambling protections actually apply – sits with the player, not the shirt.
Sources
- Our Culture Mag – Premier League’s Offshore Betting Problem: Why Curacao Betting Sites Are Suddenly in the UK Spotlight
- NEXT.io – UK govt consulting on unlicensed gambling sponsorship ban
- Harris Hagan – DCMS Launches Consultation on Unlicensed Gambling Advertising and Sponsorship Ban
- GOV.UK – Consultation on banning unlicensed gambling sponsorship
- iGaming Business – DCMS extends unlicensed gambling sponsorship ban to include non-sport deals
- SCCG Management – LHGP Consortium Calls for DCMS to Ban Licensed Operators from Sports Sponsorships
