- TGP Europe drops license after £3.3M UK fine
- Gambling firm linked to trafficking, organized crime syndicate
- Premier League clubs warned: ditch unlicensed sponsors fast
At least five prominent English football clubs have been urged to find new sponsors after the controversial gambling firm TGP Europe abruptly surrendered its UK license last week.
This comes after the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) slapped a £3.3 million ($4.4 million) fine on the company for failure to perform sufficient checks on business partners while breaching anti-money laundering (AML) rules.
TGP would have to pay up and make “significant improvements” if it wanted to continue trading in the UK, the UKGC said.
On Friday, the regulator revealed the Isle of Man-based outfit had opted to cut and run, pulling its operations from the UK.
White-Label Loophole
TGP exploited the “white label” licensing system, which allowed gambling companies to operate in the UK by proxy, under the company’s license.
Under that system, TGP would create a website bearing an operator’s brand, but the content and services within were operated and managed by TGP. Controversially, this has fueled an influx of Asia-facing sportsbooks that have little interest in the UK market.
Instead, these operators use the Premier League as a springboard to the hard-to-reach but very lucrative Chinese market, where promoting gambling is illegal.
Last week the UKGC wrote to AFC Bournemouth, Fulham FC, Newcastle United FC, Wolverhampton Wanderers FC, and Burnley FC, which have sponsorship agreements with TGP-affiliated brands, to warn them of the risks of promoting unlicensed gambling websites.
The regulator warned that team officials could be liable to prosecution and possibly prison if they continued to promote the brands.
According to research by Josimar, an investigative soccer website, TGP was originally established as a subsidiary of Suncity, then the biggest junket operator in Macau. Suncity was headed by Alvin Chau, reputedly a former top 14K triad.
In January 2023, Chau was sentenced to 18 years in prison by a Macau court on 162 charges of fraud, illegal gambling, and criminal association.
‘Vigorish Viper’
In July 2025, cybersecurity investigator Infoblox claimed it had discovered a missing link between China-facing sports betting brands and organized crime tied to human trafficking and money laundering.
Infoblox determined that a criminal syndicate, which it called “Vigorish Viper,” was providing these brands with a full technology suite, including software, DNS configurations, website hosting, payment mechanisms, and mobile apps.
Infoblox was “highly confident” that Vigorish Viper’s technology suite was developed by the Yabo Group, a former sponsorship partner of Manchester United.
Yabo controls “possibly the biggest illegal gambling operation targeting Greater China,” according to a 2023 study by the Asian Racing Foundation (ARF). The group also owned many seemingly unconnected brands. Some, such as Kaiyun Sports, operated via TGP Europe’s white-label system and currently sponsors Nottingham Forest.
The ARF study cites reports that have directly tied Yabo to labor camps on the Cambodia-Laos border, where trafficked victims are forced to help run gambling operations and scam call centers.
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