Sports sponsorship under the remote gambling regime

The Remote Gambling Act (Wet kansspelen op afstand) is streamlined to enter into force in Q1 2021 and will amend various pieces of existing legislation, such as the Regulation recruitment, advertising, and addiction prevention (Regeling werving, reclame en verslavingspreventie kansspelen, “RRAAP”). The amended RRAAP will include a definition of sponsorship that will read as follows: “The provision of financial or other contributions in return for the neutral mention or display of the licence holder’s name, trademark, figurative mark or any other distinctive sign”.

Sponsoring is a form of advertising. Under the forthcoming remote gambling regime, there is no objection per se to sponsoring sports teams, for example, by displaying the licence holder’s logo on shirts and boards alongside the field. However, and considering advertising may not be aimed at minors, it will be prohibited to sponsor youth teams and displaying the licence holder’s logo on products worn by children.

In addition, it will be prohibited to use the services of individual professional athletes for recruiting and advertising purposes. A key carve-out will enable remote gambling licensees to sponsor such persons in exchange for increasing brand recognition, for example, by wearing sportswear or using sporting goods displaying the licence holder’s name or logos. Prohibiting the sponsorship of individual professional athletes was considered undesirable because “athletes are dependent on sponsorship money” and “it would put them at a disproportionate disadvantage if they were prohibited from being sponsored by a licence holder.”

That the legislator assigns special value to sponsorship under the remote gambling regulatory regime also follows from the fact that neutral messages concerning the sponsorship of a television programme will be exempted from the prohibition to advertise any gambling-related advertising on television between 06:00-21:00.