BGC WELCOME SPORTS BODIES’ LANDMARK NEW SPONSORSHIP CODES OF CONDUCT

The Betting and Gaming Council has welcomed new Codes of Conduct for Gambling Related Agreements across a number of major sporting bodies, significantly raising standards for sports sponsorship deals.

Working alongside globally recognised national sports bodies including the Premier League, English Football League, The FA, Women’s Super League, Rugby Football League, British Horseracing Authority plus official bodies representing darts, snooker and boxing, the BGC has developed a cross industry voluntary code of conduct for betting sponsorship deals, with each body producing a specific code for their own sport.

This new framework, created by the BGC to drive up standards, sets new standards on safer gambling sponsorship across four key principles of protection, social responsibility, reinvestment and integrity:

1. Protection of children and young people – gambling sponsorship must be specifically designed to limit its reach and promotion to those under the age of 18 and those at risk of gambling related harm.
2. Social responsibility – gambling sponsorship must be promoted and delivered in a socially responsible way. This includes ensuring that education and awareness messages are provided as part of all marketing activities.
3. Reinvestment into sport – the commercial income raised from gambling sponsorship must be reinvested back into infrastructure and programmes that serve fans and communities. This includes investment in improving infrastructure and providing community and grassroots participation opportunities for local communities.
4. Maintaining sporting integrity – gambling sponsorship must not compromise the integrity of sporting competitions nor harm the welfare of those participants who take part in them.

The EFL, Premier League, The FA and Women’s Super League have already announced that that they have formally agreed to adopt the new Code of Conduct for Gambling Related Agreements in football ahead of the new season, as has the British Horseracing Authority. We expect further sporting bodies to publish shortly.

This code has huge practical implications for sports sponsorship. For football, that includes ensuring the design of betting sponsorship limits reach to children and those at risk of harm, ensuring professional footballers are aware of available support services and making sure club social media accounts do not include links to betting operator websites.

Clubs will now also ensure that a reasonable and proportionate portion of gambling sponsorship assets promote safer gambling messaging, which may include perimeter boards and match day programmes.

For horseracing, the new code will ensure that betting promotions are not directly targeted at U18, and that appropriate age awareness arrangements are applied on course.

BGC members are committed to ensuring sports betting – and sponsorship – are carried out in a socially responsible way and have been working hard to deliver these new standards.

Michael Dugher, BGC Chair said: “I welcome the publication of these landmark codes that BGC has led on, which sets new standards for sports. These new measures are good for sport, good for BGC members and good for fans.

“BGC members are proud to support some of the most popular sports up and down the country, and that support goes hand in hand with these principles.

“That includes protecting the young, being socially responsible, delivering investment in communities, particularly working class communities which share such close ties to these sports, and maintaining the sporting integrity which makes British clubs the best in the world.

“These codes will a be a big step forward and is something we have been working on for many years, long before the white paper. Our work in this area is another demonstration of our commitment to ensure that any betting sponsorship agreement must be undertaken in a responsible way.

“It is the latest in a long list of measures the BGC has launched to raise standards, including betting operators’ logos being removed from children’s clothing – including replica football kits – and the whistle to whistle ban which has reduced the number of TV betting commercials viewed by children during live sports before the watershed by 97 per cent.

“BGC members are committed to safer gambling and signposting available support regularly and prominently, while our largest members helped deliver a record donation of £172m to tackle gambling harm between 2019 and 2024.

“When we say we are raising standards, we mean business, and this is further concrete evidence of that determination.”

BGC Members provide some of the country’s most popular sport with vital funding, from the grassroots to the elite level.

The Sky Bet sponsored English Football League and its clubs receive £40m, William Hill sponsors the Scottish Professional Football League, while a host of other BGC members from Betway to Kindred are supporting football and other sports.

Meanwhile, horseracing receives £350m, and snooker, darts and rugby league – which is currently sponsored by Betfred – receive more than £12.5m.

Meanwhile, BGC member Entain’s Pitching In sponsors the Trident League – 250 clubs at steps three and four of the English football pyramid – a huge boost to grassroots football. And Flutter has invested millions into a huge range of community sports through its Cash4Clubs scheme.

The regulated betting and gaming industry in the UK supports 110,000 jobs, generates £4.2bn in tax and contributes £7.1bn to the economy.

Each month in Britain around 22.5m adults have a bet and the most recent NHS Health Survey for England estimated that 0.4 per cent of the adult population are problem gamblers.