Betsson Group has secured “Employer of the Year” award at the SBC Awards Europe 2026, held on 30 April 2026 in Malta. The SBC Awards Europe celebrate excellence across the European sports betting and gaming sector, recognising top-performing operators, affiliates, suppliers, payments providers and game developers.

In addition to this honour, Betsson Group also received three silver awards: Socially Responsible Initiative of the Year, Casino Operator of the Year and Sportsbook Operator of the Year. These recognitions highlight Betsson’s commitment not only to delivering high-quality gaming experiences, but also to operating responsibly and sustainably while maintaining its strength in casino and sportsbook verticals.

These achievements reflect Betsson’s continued focus on employee engagement, sustainability and commercial success, reinforcing its commitment to maintaining high industry standards.

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Entain has officially urged the UK’s Independent Football Regulator (IFR) to ban Premier League clubs from accepting sponsorship from gambling operators that lack a UK license. The call was made in response to the IFR’s Second Licensing Consultation (CP 2/26), in which the IFR is seeking views on a new club licensing regime for the top five tiers of English men’s football.

The IFR’s draft already prohibits English football clubs from accepting income “connected to serious criminal conduct”. Entain is asking the regulator to confirm, in a single line of guidance, that the rule covers the unlicensed gambling operators currently sponsoring six Premier League clubs – operators that commit a criminal offence under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 every time they accept a bet from a British consumer.

Stella David, Chief Executive of Entain plc, said: “Premier League clubs are being sponsored by criminal gambling firms. The Independent Football Regulator can stop this tomorrow by simply acknowledging that unlicensed gambling companies targeting UK customers through English football are breaking the law – plain and simple. The regulator does not need any new powers, new legislation, or even a new rule to make this happen. In fact, it has already drafted one. We are asking the regulator to define and apply it before the next season begins. The IFR was created to fix English football’s governance failures. This is one of them.”

The scale of the unlicensed market is significant and growing. Research by Frontier Economics, commissioned by the Betting and Gaming Council, found that 1.5 million Britons stake £4.3 billion a year on unlicensed sites, which already account for 9% of the total UK gambling market, according to analysis by Yield Sec. One in five 18-to-24-year-olds has used illegal channels. An estimated 420,000 British schoolchildren are gambling on the black market, routed there through social media, VPNs and crypto wallets. The Gambling Commission has found that 67% of GamStop users (people who have actively excluded themselves from licensed gambling) report being targeted by black market advertising. Unlicensed operators conduct no affordability checks, offer no self-exclusion tools and answer to no regulator.

Football is one of the black market’s most effective acquisition channels. Research by WARC, commissioned by the Betting and Gaming Council, projects that unlicensed gambling sponsorship will account for more than half of all UK sports sponsorship spend by October 2027, with unregulated firms set to triple their spend on 2019/2020 levels. Yield Sec analysis found that 92% of online betting content in certain social media categories directs users to unlicensed sites. A 2024 audit by Deal Me Out found that 84% of relevant content creators reviewed promoted unlicensed operators.

Entain’s submission to the IFR sets out four specific recommendations:

• Confirm in guidance that income from gambling operators conducting unlicensed activity in the UK constitutes funds “connected to serious criminal conduct” for the IFR’s draft Annex B, Part IV.

• Add a board attestation to the Annual Declaration requiring directors to verify the licence status of any gambling operator with which the club holds a significant commercial arrangement. Annual Declarations are signed by directors and carry legal consequences for false attestation. A vague governance principle cannot create the same accountability.

• Strengthen the Football Club Corporate Governance Code to require boards to treat reputational risk from commercial partnerships as a standing governance responsibility, and to demonstrate proportionate oversight of partners in sectors associated with consumer harm.

• Publish general guidance applicable to all licensed clubs, setting out the due diligence and notification obligations that apply to gambling commercial partners. Entain argues that a club-by-club Discretionary Licence Condition approach is inadequate for what is plainly a market-wide problem: systemic risks require systemic responses.

The IFR’s consultation comes ahead of a forthcoming consultation by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on banning unlicensed gambling operators from sponsoring British sports teams.

Entain has also written to Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, urging an immediate voluntary ban on sponsorship and advertising by unlicensed operators ahead of the 2026/27 season.

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GamScore is a real-time platform that gives bettors a clear, dynamic view of their gambling health with their own personalised dashboard and score. It helps individuals understand, manage and improve their betting behaviour, in one place, while enabling a safer and more transparent betting ecosystem.

A bettor’s GamScore is derived through an algorithm, using data that shows they are betting responsibly and within their means. It will also identify any early-stage risk with proprietary AI driven behavioural science insights and educational tips when flagged, guiding users towards healthier betting behaviour.

Most existing compliance tools rely on static, point-in-time financial risk checks. GamScore provides a live, continuously updating view of a bettor’s

gambling activity.

The GamScore dashboard will flag black market activity and offshore operators. It has been well published that black market turnover has risen three-fold over the last five years. Thousands of UK consumers are unaware that they are staking bets with the black market or the risks associated.

The GamScore app will identify behavioural patterns consistent with unregulated betting, educate users on the risks of offshore and unlicensed operators and provide regulators with aggregated insights into market trends. Current financial risk checks are creating friction for consumers and operational challenges for bookmakers.

In its second phase, GamScore will provide a modern, data-driven alternative that balances consumer experience with operator compliance and regulatory objectives. It will give bettors clarity, control and confidence without the need for repetitive document requests. Better data combined with better tools lead to better outcomes. By improving the regulated experience, GamScore will help reduce the incentive to move offshore.

Given its potential to support both consumer protection and market sustainability, GamScore has answered the UKGC’s call for innovative technical solutions that the whole industry can support. They would welcome the opportunity to work with policy makers, regulators and operators to find a way to provide the app, free at the point of consumption, to every UK bettor.

GamScore believes this will support the DCMS’s aims of balancing consumer protection with the long-term health of the domestic betting and gaming industries.

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