Everton sponsor leaves UK after porn ad probe
A front-of-shirt sponsor of Everton football club is giving up its license in Great Britain after an investigation into an ad featuring porn actress Bonnie Blue.
In the social media video shot outside Nottingham Trent University, she said she was there "as promised" to "sleep with 180 barely-legal 18 year olds", with Stake's logo on the screen.
Campaigners had urged the culture secretary to take action over the advert for using sexual content to promote gambling to young people.
The Gambling Commission said it will write to Everton to warn it of its responsibilities to ensure that the unlicensed gambling websites promoted on shirts cannot be accessed from Great Britain.
The regulator is also writing to Nottingham Forest, which has sponsorship from Kaiyun, and Leicester City which has a deal with BC.Game, because both sites are also unlicensed in Great Britain.
Australian online betting firm Stake decided to exit Great Britain after the Gambling Commission launched its investigation.
The BBC understands that Everton has no plans to replace Stake as a main shirt sponsor.
The English Premier League attracts a vast global audience, and clubs frequently strike sponsorship deals with firms that do no business in the UK.
Stake, whose logo appears on Everton football shirts, calls itself the "worlds leading cryptocurrency casino and sportsbook". It allows customers to bet on sports or virtual casino games, though GB users cannot use Bitcoin and other digital currencies.
It is run under license by a firm based in the Isle of Man, TGP Europe, using a "white label" agreement, frequently used by global gambling firms that want to start up in the UK without a large initial investment in infrastructure and development.
The Gambling Commission said Stake's GB business will stop taking new registrations and will close altogether on 11 March.
Stake said in a statement that it has "made a strategic decision in mutual agreement with TGP Europe to exit white-label agreements and focus on securing local licenses through our in-house platform and operations, building upon our growth in key regulated markets such as our recent expansions into Italy and Brazil."
The regulator will warn the clubs that their officers could face up to 51 weeks in jail and unlimited fines if they were found guilty of promoting "unlawful gambling websites".
It wants an assurance from the clubs that they have "carried out due diligence on their white label partners and that consumers in Great Britain cannot transact with the unlicensed sites," it said.
That could involve the clubs specifying that the websites block UK users, including those using a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which can allow users to access unlicensed websites by disguising which country they are accessing the internet from.
It added that customers can contact a gambling operator via the operator's website if they still needed to obtain their funds after the firm had closed.
In January, Bonnie Blue – whose real name is Tia Billinger – tried to break the world record for sex with the largest number of men in 12 hours. She was not included in the Commission's investigation and there is no suggestion of wrongdoing on her part.
The advert was not posted by an official Stake account and has now been deleted.
Premier League clubs have agreed to drop gambling companies as main shirt sponsors from the end of the 2025-26 season, but will still take gambling ads elsewhere, such as shirt sleeves and digital advert hoardings.
There has been increased scrutiny from both the government and campaigners about the widespread use of gambling firms to sponsor football clubs.
Research from 2024 suggested that the number of betting adverts during the opening weekend of the Premier League season almost trebled compared with the year before.
Campaigners including former Stoke City player Tony Kelly have warned about 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.
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