The company behind Sun Bets – an online gambling partnership with Rupert Murdoch’s News UK publishing group – is to pull out of the venture less than two years after the brand was widely pilloried over the “piegate” football scandal.

Australian firm Tabcorp, which provides the software to go with the betting website’s Sun newspaper branding, told around 60 UK-based staff that it is on the verge of ending the partnership, which began in 2016, a year early.

Sun Bets attracted criticism in 2017 for its role in a publicity stunt that led to Sutton United’s goalkeeper eating a pie during a televised FA Cup tie with Arsenal. The ploy resulted in the company receiving an £84,000 fine from the Gambling Commission in April. Tabcorp had flagged concerns about the venture two months before the fine, saying Sun Bets was performing poorly and was under review.

The company confirmed it was “in discussions with News UK about a proposal to exit early its agreement to operate Sun Bets” but said plans had not been finalised.

Sources familiar with the situation said Tabcorp was likely to pay News UK a break fee worth up to £30m to get out of the partnership.

The decision brings the curtain down on a deal thought to be worth more than £12m a year to News UK in the form of a payment from Tabcorp for the right to use the Sun brand. News UK is expected to seek a new partner to power its Sun Bets website.

News UK is thought to have been unhappy at Tabcorp’s performance and is expected to seek a new partner to improve the Sun Bets website.

A News UK spokesperson said: “The Sun is the number one newspaper website in the UK and we believe that this reach, and the power of its brand, still represent a great opportunity for readers to take a punt using Sun Bets. We will let customers know if there will be any change to the service.”

Prospective partners could be spooked by Tabcorp’s difficulty in turning Sun Bets into a gambling powerhouse in a crowded UK betting industry.



In February, Tabcorp said Sun Bets’s performance was “unsatisfactory” after it made an operating loss of £12.6m in just six months and had also suffered one-off extra costs of more than £28m.

The Australian firm also found itself at the centre of a negative publicity storm over the “piegate” controversy, amid other regulatory failures.

It was eventually fined £84,000 by the Gambling Commission for offering odds of 8-1 that the substitute goalkeeper Wayne Shaw would finish an entire pie while the game was going on.

Shaw’s successful consumption of the pie during the FA Cup fifth-round tie against Arsenal in February 2017 resulted in him being fined £375 by the Football Association and banned for two months from all footballing activity. He later resigned from the club.

The commission also punished Tabcorp for offering bets on whether a streaker would run on to the pitch, which it warned was a potential inducement to committing a criminal offence.

The company admitted weaknesses in its systems and promised to improve its risk assessment process.