Celton Manx, the European operator of the SBOTOP sportsbook which at times had a visible presence in English top-flight football, has filed for dissolution.

The company is included on a list of firms which have applied to declare dissolution on the Isle of Man government’s Companies Registry, with the list last updated on Friday 31 October.

Bill Mummery, CEO of the company, has confirmed to SBC News that the company is in the process of dissolving, having surrendered its Isle of Man operating licence earlier this year.

Celton Manx was founded in the late 2000s and in 2009 became the first company to be granted a licence by the then-newly founded Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission (GSC).

The firm subsequently played a key role in the development of the iGaming industry on the Isle of Man, now one of the Crown Dependency’s biggest industries with various B2C and B2B firms based there.

Its products encompass live casino and sports betting, being the European operator of the Asia-based and focused SBOBet via its management of SBOTOP. This platform gained a lot of visibility in the Premier League in particular via sponsorship deals.

SBOTOP partnered with Leeds United for the 2020/21 season with the deal ending after the 2022/23 season when the club was relegated from the PremierLeague to the EFL Championship. The company did not waste any time in re-securing top-flight brand visibility, signing a deal with Fulham FC from the 2022/23 season.

These deals came at a time of growing pressure on the relationship between betting and sports in the UK, with a voluntary ban on front-of-shirt betting sponsors due to be adopted by the Premier League next season. There has also been a lot of public discourse around the prevalence of partnerships between Premier League clubs and Asian betting firms.

SBOTOP and Celton Manx’s exit from the UK began earlier this year, however, when the SBOTOP website ceased activity in April. This was related to TGP Europe, a white label company which operated the SBOTOP website along with holding licences and managing sites for a host of other Asia-facing betting sites, some of which did not actually have active domains in the UK.

TGP Europe surrendered both its Isle of Man and UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) licences that same month after an investigation by the latter uncovered anti-money laundering and social responsibility failures. The firm was subsequently issued a £3m penalty.

Shortly before TGP Europe’s collapse, Celton Manx also surrendered its licence with the Isle of Man’s GSC. SBOTOP would later be issued its own enforcement penalty by the UKGC, paying £3.9m for AML and social responsibility licensing breaches.

The dissolution of the company this month should mark the end of its withdrawal, and is likely the last lingering ripple effect from the TGP Europe saga. Despite these developments, however, the SBOTOP logo remains on the front of Fulham FC’s shirts.