Gambling and UK Sport This year, the UK has seen gradual progress towards reforming its gambling laws regarding sport. The UK Gambling Act Review of 2022, a government white paper reviewing the 2005 Gambling Act and setting forth recommendations for an overhaul of the UK’s betting laws, has been speculated to have particularly weighty implications for the sport sector. This will come on top of a rise in taxes for online casinos and sports betting companies enacted this April and will create new legal considerations for the promotion and marketing of sport-adjacent betting services. Among the report’s recommendations are purported to be controls on wager levels, prize limits, testing requirements, and various changes to so-called ‘VIP programs’ offered by betting companies to higher-paying gamblers. The recommendations are also suspected to include a ban on gambling companies advertising on sports teams’ shirts, a move that is predicted to cost football clubs around £40 million per year should it be enacted. However, progress towards a concrete change regarding these laws has been slow in arriving, owing in large part to political turmoil in the country. The white paper was originally slated for release in 2019, but has been mired in delays and pushed back four times, with the latest such delay occurring in October towards the beginning of former Prime Minister Liz Truss’s premiership. Sports marketing divisions remain on watch for potential seismic changes that may occur as a result of the paper’s eventual publication, though the uncertainty its contents generate in the meantime is unlikely to do any favours for the sector or the wider economy. 26 LAWYERMONTHLYNOVEMBER 2022 This year, the UK has seen gradual progress towards reforming its gambling laws regarding sport.
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