Asian-facing online betting operator BetEast has signed on as the new shirt sponsor of English Premier League side Swansea City AFC.
Last week, Swansea announced it had reached a deal that will see BetEast replace online forex firm GWFX as the team’s main shirt sponsor for the 2016-17 EPL season. BetEast will also serve as Swansea’s official Asian betting and gaming partner.
Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but Swansea’s vice-chairman and commercial director Leigh Dineen called it “the biggest front-of-shirt deal the club has ever secured.” Dineen said the “top-tier partnership” would help BetEast “position themselves on a global stage in the top tier of bookmakers.”
BetEast is based in Costa Rica but holds licenses issued in Curacao and by the First Cagayan Leisure & Resort Corporation in the Philippines. The company’s UK-facing site operates on the TGP Europe platform along with Asian-facing operators TLCBET, Fun88 and 12Bet, the latter site having inked its own official betting partnership with Swansea one year ago.
BetEast’s UK-facing site is currently only a splash page announcing the Swansea tie-up – which it claims is “for seasons 2016-2019” – while promising that its products would be available “shortly.” BetEast’s main .com site offers services in English, Chinese and Korean, while blocking customers from the US, Spain, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
A BetEast spokesperson expressed pride at the Swansea tie-up, particularly since the club’s Liberty Stadium is where Ki Sung-Yueng currently plies his trade. Ki, who was named Swansea’s player of the year in 2015, is also the captain of South Korea’s national squad and helped the team win a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympics in London.
