Coaches, employees, and officials are also prohibited from placing bets on UFC events.
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) continues to beef up its anti-betting practices in the wake of the James Krause scandal, which caused an international incident back in late 2022. In addition to its recent collaboration with U.S. Integrity, the promotion today announced a new partnership with ProhiBet, an encrypted and decentralized cross-monitoring platform that blocks specific individuals including fighters, coaches, officials, and administrators, among others, from engaging in prohibited sports wagering.
“One of the foundations of UFC’s success is our dedication to embracing regulation and compliance to promote safety and fairness in our sport,” said Riché T. McKnight, Executive Vice President & General Counsel of UFC. “Our collaboration with ProhiBet is another step towards strengthening our integrity controls by helping us to enforce our anti-gambling policy and support the integrity of our sport.”
Krause and his cohorts are currently being investigated by the FBI for manipulating sports books based on insider knowledge. The promotion subsequently banned wagering across the board and is working to restore order with a handful of gaming commissions that hastily halted UFC betting until confidence was restored. In addition, UFC sent its fighters a new compliance training video today outlining several of the new regulations.
The video states that prohibited bettors include “anyone with inside knowledge of participants in MMA matches,” according to a follow-up report with ESPN, including (but not limited to) “coach, manager, handler, athletic trainer, medical professional staff, relative living in the same household as an athlete and/or any person with access to non-public information regarding participants in any match.”
ProhiBet is a joint venture between U.S. Integrity and Odds On Compliance.