Bet-At-Home Extends Schalke Sponsorship
German Bundesliga football club FC Schalke 04 has announced the extension of its sponsorship deal with leading online gambling operator Bet-at-Home.com.
The Malta-listed group, which is owned and operated by the BetClic Everest Group, said it would extend its contract with the Bundesliga club for another two seasons.
Bet-at-Home will be the premium partner of Schalke 04 as the team heads to the UEFA Champions League, having secured automatic qualification by finishing third in the domestic table.
Bet-At-Home will remain the football club's chief sponsor until at least June 2014.
Klaus Gruber, Sponsorship Manager for Bet-At-Home.com, said of Bet-At-Home's extension of the Schalke sponsorship deal: "Our brand has worked with the best sports clubs in Europe for many years and FC Schalke 04, as one of the biggest football clubs in Germany, is a very attractive club for an international company like Bet-At-Home.com.
Schalke 04 and Bet-At-Home Well Suited
"The past year has shown that we are an ideal match because we can use our collective creativity," he said. "In the future, FC Schalke 04 will play an even more important role in all of our communications throughout Europe."
FC Schalke 04's Marketing Director, Alexander Jobst, said he was delighted to be working with one of the industry's leading providers in the online betting arena, and the team was delighted that the already very productive partnership had been extended at such an early stage.
"From FC Schalke 04's point of view, we also appreciate our future involvement in Bet-at-Home.com's Europe-wide advertising campaigns," he added. "It shows the emotional importance of our club.
Bet-at-Home Awarded German Gambling License
The sponsorship deal with the football club comes one month after Bet-at-Home was granted an online gaming license by the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.
The gaming license taxes companies 20% of their gross gaming profit and allows them to offer sports betting services to German players.
Recently, however, a new government was elected in Schleswig-Holstein that appears to be anti-online gambling, leaving Bet-At-Home and the other licensees such as Bwin and Bet365 questioning their future in the German state.