FILE PHOTO: Soccer Football - Championship - Leicester City v West Bromwich Albion - King Power Stadium, Leicester, Britain - April 20, 2024 Leicester City flag Action Images/Andrew Boyers/File Photo
(Reuters) - Britain's gambling regulator said on Wednesday it would write to three Premier League soccer clubs - Everton, Nottingham Forest and Leicester City - warning them of the risks associated with promoting illegal gambling websites on their shirts.
The UK Gambling Commission had said earlier in the day that Stake.uk.com would no longer be a licensed gambling website following an investigation and added the operator, TGP Europe Ltd, will shut down the site by next month.
Stake.com is the front-of-shirt sponsor of Everton and online gaming platforms Kaiyun and BC Game similarly sponsor Nottingham Forest and Leicester City.
The Gambling Commission said on Wednesday its letter will warn club officers they could face fines, imprisonment or both if they are convicted of promoting unlicensed gambling businesses that transact with consumers in Britain.
"Clubs will be expected to carry out sufficient due diligence to assure the Commission that consumers cannot transact with the sites from Great Britain by any means," it said.
BC Game had disabled new registrations from November as it shuts down its UK website, a notice on the site showed.
Everton declined to comment. Leicester and Nottingham Forest did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment, while Stake, Kaiyun and BC Games could not be immediately contacted.
Premier League clubs had collectively agreed to stop featuring gambling sponsorship on the front of soccer kits from the 2026-27 season, the English top-flight league said in 2023.
A probe into Stake.uk.com was launched by the gambling regulator after a widely circulated social media video showed the Stake-branded logo alongside an adult actress near Nottingham Trent University.
The gambling regulator said TGP has agreed to immediately stop accepting new registrations for Stake.uk.com and remove redirection links from the main Stake website. The platform's final shutdown in Great Britain will be done by March 11.
(Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil and Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru, Additional reporting by Rohith Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)
