New UFC coverage prohibits fighters from wagering on promotion’s fights

The UFC will now prohibit its fighters from betting on UFC fights, in accordance with a memo despatched to athletes and their groups Monday by UFC chief enterprise officer Hunter Campbell.

Within the letter, obtained by ESPN, Campbell wrote that the UFC athlete code of conduct will now embrace a prohibition of wagering on UFC fights “in gentle of clear path that we’ve acquired from regulators chargeable for the regulated sports activities betting trade in the US.” The prohibition may also embrace members of fighters’ groups and “sure others,” Campbell wrote. Yahoo Sports activities was the primary to report the information.

“As the game has grown over time, the overwhelming majority of states that regulate sports activities playing have some prohibitions on inside betting exercise,” Campbell informed ESPN. “And this wasn’t one thing the UFC superior independently. This was one thing the UFC set forth in response from governmental businesses, conscious we’re additionally topic to governmental regulation as we’re licensed promoters in nearly each state. It is the pure evolution of the game.”

The memo additional famous that some states bar athletes from wagering on fights in promotions or occasions of which they’re affiliated, a ban that will also be prolonged to fighters’ “coaching groups, members of the family and others which have entry to ‘inside data’ referring to the athletes and their occasions.'”

“The UFC’s contracted athletes aren’t exempt from these prohibitions, which state legislators and regulators have carried out for the aim of sustaining the integrity of our sport,” Campbell wrote.

Betting websites have develop into a serious sponsor of UFC fighters and MMA athletes typically over the previous few years, as sports activities betting has develop into authorized in quite a few states throughout the nation. Fighters will nonetheless have the ability to retain these betting sponsors and search new ones, Campbell wrote within the memo, and the UFC won’t prohibit them from being model ambassadors for such firms. Some fighters receives a commission by betting sponsors for giving their picks on fights, which may also proceed to be allowed beneath the UFC’s code of conduct.

Fighters like Justin Jaynes, who competed within the UFC in 2020 and 2021, have overtly talked about betting on themselves over the past 18 months and fighters, on their social media channels, have routinely shared accounts of them playing on fights.