The past few weeks have been anything but monotonous in Formula 1. Just a few days after the official presentation, Sauber will be under scrutiny by Swiss authorities due to one of its main sponsors – Stake, a cryptographic casino operator.
The company’s presence is very evident on the car presented on Monday, but Sauber is now facing legal problems in Switzerland. The team is based in Switzerland, one of the countries with some legal restrictions on gambling advertising. The applicable law for any type of gambling requires the entity to have a Swiss license, which Stake does not have.
It was already known that the brand could not appear in all rounds due to gambling advertising regulations – there was even the intention to replace its logos with those of Kick in the territories where this happens. However, according to SRF, the director of the Center for Competition and Commercial Law, Patrick Krauskopf, argued:
– The sponsorship would be allowed. However, in this case, the Stake and Sauber brands are so closely linked and the term Stake is so ingrained in the minds of viewers that we probably crossed the line into unauthorized advertising.
At the moment, the Swiss entity responsible for gambling – Eidgenossische Spielbankenkommission – is scrutinizing the agreements between Sauber and Stake to understand if they comply with the country’s law.
