Leicester were set to unveil their kit for the new season last week, but the announcement was postponed. Was it because their new sponsor KBET is a hitherto unknown – and illegal – online bookmaker?
By Philippe Auclair
Leicester City FC has a long history of partnering with illegal (*) Asian-facing sports betting platforms. In fact, Josimar’s research shows that the Midlands club is the world record holder of the number of such partnerships, with a total of thirteen since 2016, when 12bet became the first such operator to sign a deal with the Foxes. 6686, 8Xbet, Dafabet, EKings, HTH, JiangNan Sports, Kaiyun, Leyu, M88, OB Sport, Yabo and, until the end of last season, crypto casino BC.GAME were the others. All of them Asian-facing. All of them illegal.
It now looks that a fourteenth name should be added to the list: multiple leaked photographs purporting to show the Championship club’s 2025-26 home strip suggest that their main sponsor for the coming season will be KBET, a hitherto unknown operator which claims to be “Vietnam’s leading reputable online betting house”, with 1 million customers and 13,000 agents in that country alone. These are impressive numbers – all the more impressive since the domain name of their main website, kgame.asia, was only registered on 18 April of this year by Singaporean web registrar GNAME. Impressive and, in all likelihood, pure fantasy.
The first of many questions raised by Leicester’s choice of KBET as their number one partner in 2025-26 is how they could possibly associate with a company which is unlicensed in the United Kingdom, given what the potential legal consequences of that choice would be. In May, the club received a formal warning from the Great Britain Gambling Commission (GBGC) for their partnership with BC.GAME, an operator which had been declared bankrupt in Curaçao and surrendered its licence in the UK at the end of last year. Club officials were told by the GBGC that they risked fines and even imprisonment if they “promoted unlicensed gambling businesses that transact with consumers in Great Britain” – as BC.GAME did; and as KBET, which can be accessed without a VPN in Britain, seems to do. Some Leicester fans claim they were not even asked for proof of age and identity when they registered with KBET online.
Josimar approached the GBGC, which confirmed that “KBET is not currently licensed by the Commission to provide gambling in Great Britain, nor is there a white label arrangement in place relevant to the brand. Our position on sponsorship arrangements in sports is unchanged, and our webpage on ‘sports sponsorship and advertising’ explains that organisations engaging in sponsor arrangements with an unlicensed brand must ensure that online gambling activity for that unlicensed brand is blocked and inaccessible to consumers in Great Britain”.
There has been no confirmation by the club yet that their front-of-shirt sponsor for the 2025-26 season would be KBET. The announcement which was expected to be made on 18 July will now be made “later in the pre-season”, according to the club’s website. Sources close to the club have told Josimar that “later”, here, might be as late as 3 August, when Leicester host Fiorentina in a warm-up game at the King Power Stadium. The Foxes’ pink third kit which got its first outing on 19 July in a friendly against Hungarian side Zalaegerszegi TE was devoid of any sponsor’s name. No reason was given for that delay.
Leicester City’s 2025-26 sponsor-less third kit, as seen in a friendly on 19 July.
Anyone home?
As is usual in the world of illegal online gambling, finding out who owns and runs KBET is a near-impossible task. The brand’s name and logo do not appear in the WIPO database of registered trademarks (*). No particulars are available on a website which does not appear to be fully operational in any case, with inactive or missing hyperlinks, and no mention of the operator’s relationship with Leicester City as of yet. This website is so generic and so rudimentary, in fact, that it looks more like one of the thousands of fake pages put online by scammers who hijack the names and logos of established (but still illegal) brands in the region to lure their victims; and while it is true that there is another Vietnamese casino, KBBET, which has sometimes used the shortened ‘KBET’, nothing in the presentation, imagery, logos and inner architecture of their respective websites points to a case of impersonation by the ‘new’ KBET. It is however not possible to reject out of hand the possibility that the two companies could be related (*).
One of the more bizarre characteristics of Leicester’s KBET is that it boasts of being licensed in three jurisdictions: Curaçao, the Philippines and Malta. Tellingly, the active seals which genuine licensees display to prove their credentials are absent. KBET’s name does not appear in the registry of the Malta Gaming Authority (*); and any claim of being licensed by PAGCOR, the Philippines gaming regulator, is bound to be fanciful, as all gaming licences were revoked there as of 1 January 2025, following a decree issued by president Marcos. It has not been possible to check the registry of the Curaçao Gaming Control Board, which is currently being updated by the regulator. There was no mention of a “KBET” in the last version Josimar could access.
One of the three physical addresses which can be found for the operator is 27a, Lac Long Quân in Hô Chin Minh, Vietnam, a low-rise building in a residential street which does not look like the headquarters of a company claiming to have 1 million customers in that country.
Neither is the second one, 248 D. Hoang Van Thu, Ward 4, Tan Binh, also in Ho Chi Minh City, where a mobile phone shop can be found.
As to the third address, given as 10 Ngô Gia Tự, Đức Giang, Long Biên, Hanoi on mirror website kbetgame.club, the only game one can play there seems to be basketball.
Phantom accounts
KBET has also recently set up accounts on a number of social media platforms, which all have something in common: no followers, no posts.
KBET’s YouTube Channel
KBET’s X account
KBET’s Pinterest account
As no official announcement of the partnership between Leicester City FC and KBET has been made yet, and as KBET’s main website does not advertise it either, it is possible that the leak of the club’s 2025-26 home jersey happened as the two parties were still engaged in talks to finalise the deal, and that the attention it gained on social media caused some discomfort at the club. Yet old habits die hard. In any case, Leicester City might be wise to re-consider its choice of partner while there is still time.
Josimar submitted a list of detailed questions to Leicester City FC, but had received no reply at the time of publication. This article will be updated if and when a reply reaches us.
(*) Josimar uses the definition of “illegal sports betting” which is given in article 3 of the Macolin Convention and is accepted by the World Lotteries Association (WLA).
(*) The Korean KBET which is listed by WIPO is a long-established sports foundation, not a gambling operator.
(*) KBBET also appears to be operating in South Korea as “K-Bet”, targeting the large Vietnamese expatriate community which lives there.
