Online gambling returning to cycling’s pro peleton

We haven’t seen an online gambling operator’s logo on the jersey of a pro cycling team in Europe for quite some time. This is about to change with not one, but two recently announced sponsorship deals.

2023 will see Unibet making a return to cycling after their first foray back in 2006/7 ended in tears. Back then, the sports governing bodies, ASO and UCI both felt cycling’s squeaky clean brand would be tarnished by any involvement from gambling companies. This is despite half the pro peleton being doped to the eyeballs on EPO, testosterone and blood bags – in some cases with the (alleged) knowledge of senior UCI officials.

A sport awash with performance enhancing drugs and occasional athlete deaths from same, thought itself above being sullied by the murky world of iGaming.

Team Unibet (mark I) collapsed in 2007 after being refused entry to UCI and ASO races and losing the will to fight it out to the bitter end in the courts. Pity. Not a bad looking kit.

15 years on, team Unibet mark II will make a return. Not to the top echelon this time (UCI World Team). rather a couple of rungs down – launching a UCI Continental Team for 2023.

The driving force behind the move is ex-pro and now successful Youtuber, Bas Tietema. He’s convinced Unibet to jump on board as major sponsor. Bas and Unibet have plans to level up to Pro Team status, at which point they will have the chance to compete in the world biggest cycling races.

The second sponsorship deal will be more talked about. Powerhouse UCI World Tour team Jumbo-Visma have signed a 3 year deal with Amsterdam based betting firm BetCity. The BetCity logo will get a place, albeit small, on the side of Jumbo’s jersey.

Jumbo are about as high profile as you get in cycling. They dominated this year’s Tour de France winning the yellow jersey (Jonas Vingegaard), green jersey (Wout Van Aert) and 6 stages. In Van Aert they have arguably the sports biggest name right now.

Even a small online gambling logo on this jersey is testing the UCI and ASO tolerances for the industry.

Who are BetCity? Anyone living in the Netherlands would know. They were one of the first operators granted a KSA license in October 2021 and hold an estimated 20% share of the Dutch online gambling market. Such is their dominance, Entain decided to buy them in June 2022 in a deal worth around $850 million (rather than try and compete for market share).

BetCity certainly have the cash to make that jersey logo bigger, if they’re ever allowed.