The UAE’s emerging betting and gaming market continues to develop at pace, with the list of licensed vendors continually expanding, Sportradar being the latest addition.

As of today (21 October), 17 companies have secured ‘gaming-related vendor licences’, while one firm, Wynn Resorts, has the only land-based gaming licence, and a sole lottery licence is held by the state-owned UAE Lottery.

The gaming-related vendor licence acquired by Sportradar covers all types of supplier activities, essentially greenlighting the Swiss-based sportstech’s suite of betting and gaming solutions.

The licences are issued by the General Commercial Gaming Regulatory Authority (GCGRA), the UAE’s independent betting and gaming regulator established by the government in 2023 to oversee the development of a home grown gaming sector.

“The license, operational with immediate effect, affords Sportradar the opportunity to provide its products and services to licensed operators,” a Sportradar statement read.

“Sportradar looks forward to bringing its 20+ year expertise and proprietary sports technology to operators and clients in the region.”

Gaming in the UAE is, as mentioned above, so far restricted to the UAE Lottery and Wynn Resorts’ forthcoming casino in Ras Al Khaimah, which the operator plans to open in March 2027.

However, new additions to the B2C side of things are widely anticipated as the UAE government looks to integrate gaming into its already vast tourism industry – albeit with strict restrictions limiting gambling activities to overseas visitors only for religious reasons.

An influx of new B2C licence holders is expected at some point over the coming years, however. For companies like Sportradar the opportunity is clear – the chance to replicate the deals it has with prominent leagues like the NBA and UEFA and operators like FanDuel, DraftKings and William Hill, but in a new and high-growth potential market.

There may be a wider long-term play here as well, with the UAE often touted by industry observers as a prospective regional hub for gambling in the Middle East should other regional markets opt to liberalise.

Commenting at the SBC Summit Lisbon last month, for example Kevin Mullally, CEO of GCGRA, boldly projected that the country’s emerging market “is going to redefine what gaming means for the rest of the world”.

Meanwhile, the UAE is one of many emerging markets Sportradar has its eyes on. 

The company’s CEO, Carsten Koerl, shared earlier this year that APAC markets were of particular interest to the company, listing Thailand, Sri Lanka, Japan and India as examples – though the ban on real money games (RMG) in the latter may have changed this perspective.