Aston Martin F1 Signs BK8 News as Global Partner: What the Name Means

Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team named BK8 News as a global partner on 1 October 2026, putting the name on the rear wing end plate of its AMR26 car from that weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix in Malaysia. The team describes BK8 News as “a global sports news and entertainment platform”. Trade press reports that the platform is owned by the BK8 iGaming group, whose casino and sportsbook brand is familiar from English football shirts.

What the team announced

The team’s own announcement sets out three things. BK8 News branding goes on the rear wing end plate of the AMR26, the brand gets onboard presence, and extra branding ran on the car’s fin for the launch weekend only. That weekend was the relocated Bahrain race, and our recap of the Bahrain Grand Prix at Sepang covers how it went.

On length, the team says the two organisations will work on marketing and audience projects “throughout the 2027 Formula One season and beyond”. No end date is given. European Gaming, a trade outlet, reports that the deal also covers the rest of 2026, and SportsMint Media notes that no financial terms were disclosed.

Jefferson Slack, the team’s Managing Director Commercial and Marketing, said: “We are delighted to welcome BK8 News to our team and our sport.” Michael Gatt, named as Managing Director of BK8 News, called the deal “another important step in the continued growth of BK8 News”. Both quotes are from the team’s release, and Sportscape Magazine carried the same wording.

A news platform with a casino name

The announcement does not use the words casino, betting or gambling. It presents BK8 News purely as a media brand that “provides up-to-date sports coverage and entertainment to audiences across international markets”.

Two trade outlets add the ownership. European Gaming says BK8 News is “owned by the BK8 iGaming group”, and Sportscape Magazine says it is owned by “BK8 iGaming Company”. Neither the team nor BK8 News states that in the release, and we have not seen a company filing that confirms it, so we report it as their reporting. When we loaded bk8.news on 13 October 2026, the home page text was sports coverage and we found no mention of a casino or sportsbook on it.

One detail from the public record connects the two names. CasinoBeats reported in June 2023 that Michael Gatt, then described as BK8’s EMEA Managing Director, spoke for the brand when Aston Villa announced its shirt deal. The same name now appears on the Aston Martin release with a BK8 News title.

The casino side is the BK8 that players in Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand will recognise. Our BK8 review covers that operator, including the Anjouan licence we looked up on the register ourselves and the limits of what that licence protects.

The football deals that came first

BK8 has been here before, in football. Norwich City announced BK8 as shirt sponsor in June 2021 and ended the deal three days later, according to the Pink Un and CasinoBeats, after supporters objected to sexualised marketing linked to the brand. Inside World Football puts the gap at five days. The Pink Un quoted the club’s statement: “On this occasion, we got it wrong. For that, and any offence caused, the club apologises.” The paper understood the one-year deal was worth roughly £5 million, and reported that the club faced no financial penalty.

Two years later Aston Villa signed BK8 as principal and front-of-shirt partner. CasinoBeats reported a three-year deal running to the end of the 2025/26 season, with the Aston Villa Supporters’ Trust having urged the club to drop it. A Villa spokesperson said the partnership would help grow both brands, “particularly within Southeast Asia”. James Grimes, founder of the Big Step campaign against gambling sponsorship, had earlier told The Telegraph the expected deal was “tone-deaf”, as quoted by Inside World Football. In March 2024 the same outlet reported that Betano would replace BK8 on Villa’s shirts in a two-year deal worth £20 million a season.

Motorsport came next. A BK8 press release from April 2025 announced BK8 News as title sponsor of Gresini Racing’s MotoGP team for 2025 and 2026, again describing it as a sports news and entertainment platform.

Where gambling sponsorship stands in football and F1

The timing matters in football. Premier League clubs agreed on 13 April 2023 to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of matchday shirts, with the change beginning at the end of the 2025/26 season. The Irish Times reported that gambling brands could still appear on sleeves and advertising boards after that date. On that timetable, 2026/27 is the first Premier League season the agreement applies to, and it is the season in which this name arrived in F1.

Formula 1 has no comparable collective rule that we could find, and betting brands have appeared there openly. Sportcal reported in January 2024 that Stake, which it called a “crypto casino and sports betting platform”, became title sponsor of the Sauber team for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

What is different about the Aston Martin deal is the label. A media brand that shares its name with a gambling operator can appear where a casino advert might draw more scrutiny. We are describing that structure, not alleging a breach of any rule. Neither European Gaming nor SportsMint Media carried any regulatory or critical comment on the deal, and we found no statement about it from a regulator. If one is published, we will add it here.

Why this matters if you bet with BK8

A logo on an F1 car shows marketing budget. It does not show how an operator treats its customers. Sponsorship says nothing about whether a licence is valid, whether it covers the website you were sent to, or how long withdrawals take. Those are separate questions, and our guide on how to check a casino licence shows how to answer the first two on the regulator’s own register.

There is also no betting angle to chase here. The deal changes nothing about odds, markets or Aston Martin’s results, and nothing in this piece is a prediction or a recommendation to open an account. Online gambling carries real financial risk, the law on it differs from country to country, and it is for adults aged 18 and over only. If betting has stopped feeling like entertainment, our responsible gambling page lists free support services.

We’ll update this piece if the team, BK8 News or a regulator says more about the partnership, and we’ll flag any correction openly.