Kevin Pietersen Reportedly Tells ECB He Will Not Promote Dafabet on England Duty

England's white-ball mentor signed as a Dafabet brand ambassador this week and has told the England and Wales Cricket Board he will not promote betting while on duty, The Guardian reports. The precedent says the deal itself is allowed; the harder questions sit with the advertising rules and with Dafabet's own cricket sponsorships.

• Kevin Pietersen has told the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) he will not promote betting while on duty as England's specialist mentor, according to The Guardian, two days after announcing a brand ambassador deal with Dafabet
• The ECB appointed Pietersen on 7 September to Brendon McCullum's white-ball set-up through the 2027 50-over World Cup, a commitment The Guardian puts at around 150 days over 13 months
• The ECB's anti-corruption code bars participants, coaching staff included, from encouraging anyone to bet on a match, but the board took no action in 2023 over McCullum's ambassadorship for 22bet
• Dafabet's British site is listed on the Gambling Commission register as a white label under SCGO Limited's remote licence, whereas 22bet is licensed in Curaçao, The Guardian notes
• Dafabet is already in English cricket's line of sight: it sponsors Middlesex's men's shirts, and England's ODI series in South Africa this winter is one of Cricket South Africa's "Dafabet ODI" series

Pietersen's Dafabet Deal Lands a Month Into His England Role

Kevin Pietersen has reassured the ECB that he will not promote Dafabet while on England duty, according to an exclusive by Matt Hughes in The Guardian on 14 October. The former England batter announced on Monday 12 October that he was joining Dafabet, which the newspaper describes as Philippines-based, as a brand ambassador on what it calls a lucrative contract. Its value has not been disclosed. The Guardian says Pietersen "is understood" to have given the assurance; iGaming Times has not seen a statement on it from the ECB or Dafabet.

The ECB named Pietersen, now 46, Specialist Mentor to the England men's white-ball teams on 7 September. The board's announcement covers this winter's tours of Australia and South Africa, next summer's home series and the World Cup in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, and says he will work with the teams "over the next 15 months"; Pietersen speaks in it of 12. When the ECB split its Test and white-ball coaching staff on 12 October, he stayed in McCullum's group, ESPNcricinfo reported. He will skip next week's tri-series in Pakistan but play a full part in the rest, which The Guardian says will make the pledge restrictive.

The Code, and the McCullum Precedent

Article 2.2.2 of the ECB's Anti-Corruption Code for Participants, in the version on the board's website, makes it an offence to be "directly or indirectly soliciting, inducing, enticing, instructing, persuading, encouraging, facilitating or authorising any other party to enter into a Bet" on any match or competition. Participants include coaches and anyone contracted to the ECB. Article 2.2.1 bars them from betting on cricket themselves, the rule under which England bowler Brydon Carse received a 16-month ban, 13 months suspended, for 303 bets, The Guardian notes.

The board has been here before. In March 2023 a video on McCullum's Facebook page showed him promoting 22bet's Indian Premier League markets. On 19 April 2023 the ECB said no further action would be taken; News24 reported that the board concluded the code does not stop players or officials becoming brand ambassadors for betting organisations. According to The Guardian, McCullum ended the relationship anyway. It describes 22bet as Cyprus-based and licensed offshore in Curaçao.

Dafabet's position in Britain is different. The Gambling Commission's public register lists dafabet.co.uk as a white-label domain under SCGO Limited, account 44662, a Malta-based licensee that also runs vbet.co.uk and whose remote licence includes casino and real-event betting. Under a white label, the licensee answers to the Commission for the site.

Dafabet Is Already Inside the Game

On 19 June 2026 Cricket South Africa named Dafabet event partner for the Proteas men's home summer: eight Dafabet Test matches against Australia, Bangladesh and England, with each tour also including a three-match Dafabet ODI series between September and January. It has been associate partner of the Proteas since 2024. In England, Middlesex announced Dafabet in 2024 as principal partner in a multi-year deal, with its logo on the front of the men's shirts.

The ECB's own line is stricter. It does not take advertising revenue from gambling companies, has banned Hundred franchises from betting sponsorship from next year, and requires counties that accept gambling income to show it is reinvested in infrastructure or community programmes, according to The Guardian. Pietersen has done this before: Betway extended his global cricket ambassador role to 2023, SBC News reported in 2020.

The Code Polices Encouragement to Bet, Not Endorsement Deals

The McCullum decision, as reported, drew the line where the code draws it: an ambassadorship is not an offence, while content urging bets on a match can be. Pietersen's reported pledge goes further, but "on duty" is undefined, and a former England batter's ambassador deal is likely to be built around cricket. The code's sharper concern for anyone in a dressing room is information: Article 2.3 makes misuse of inside information for betting an offence in its own right. Nothing suggests any such risk here. The point is that the ECB is relying on Pietersen's judgement of where duty ends, which is a promise rather than a mechanism.

The Advertising Rules May Bite Before the Cricket Code Does

Since 1 October 2022, rule 16.3.12 of the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) Code has barred gambling ads likely to have strong appeal to under-18s, which keeps sports stars popular with children out of them. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) did not uphold a complaint about a Fitzdares ad featuring Stuart Broad in April 2025, partly because the former England bowler then had no significant role in cricket and few under-18 followers, according to a CAP enforcement notice under which active monitoring began on 11 June 2026. Pietersen now has a current England role, the factor absent in Broad's case, though any ruling would turn on his following and the ad itself. Dafabet content aimed at British players falls under the code, and the ASA acts on social posts, as in its ban of a Midnite TikTok ad built around an AI character who looked under 25.

A Licensed Sponsor Answers One Question and Raises Another

Dafabet's British white label removes the objection that follows offshore brands into English sport, where 11 of 20 Premier League clubs now carry an unlicensed gambling sponsor, according to Entain. The awkward collision is commercial. The ECB keeps gambling money off its own books, yet this winter its white-ball side is due to play a series Cricket South Africa has sold to Dafabet, with a coach on Dafabet's payroll in its dressing room. That breaches nothing, but it shows how far the board's policy stops at the border, while a Lords committee calls a comprehensive ban the most effective gambling ad policy.

The ECB has accepted this kind of arrangement once before and is relying on a personal assurance again. The test comes in South Africa this winter, when England's mentor and the series sponsor share a brand.