Novibet becomes AEK Larnaca main sponsor
AEK Larnaca has named Novibet as its main sponsor under a three-year deal running from 2026 to 2029, tying the operator to one of Cyprus’s most consistent top-flight football clubs. The two sides presented the agreement at a press conference at AEK Arena, with club president Andros Karapatakis, board members and Novibet executives in attendance.
Neither party disclosed the financial terms. Under the deal, Novibet gets branding across the club’s main promotional assets, including matchday appearances, the stadium, television broadcasts and the club’s digital channels, along with joint commercial activations aimed at fans. The arrangement makes Novibet the club’s principal commercial partner for the length of the contract.
Who Novibet is
Novibet is a betting and gaming brand operated by Logflex MT Holding, a Malta-based company. It began as a Greek-facing operator and has built out sports betting and online casino across several European markets, with an attempt to expand into the United States through a market-access agreement with Caesars Entertainment in New Jersey.
The sponsorship lands after two years in which the company’s ownership plans came apart. Novibet’s parent agreed in December 2024 to sell an initial 51% stake to lottery group Allwyn, but the two companies withdrew the transaction in March 2026 after it ran into competition concerns in Greece. That followed an earlier plan to list on the Nasdaq through a merger with the Artemis Strategic Investment Corporation, a special-purpose acquisition company, which was also terminated. Novibet remains privately held and independent.
Against that backdrop, the AEK Larnaca deal fits a pattern of the operator putting money into sports visibility rather than corporate transactions. Novibet already holds football sponsorships in its core Greek market, and the Cyprus agreement extends that footprint into a neighbouring league with regular European exposure. The company has also been active in courts in other jurisdictions, including Brazil, where a court dismissed a gambling liability claim against the operator in May 2026.
Why AEK Larnaca
AEK Larnaca plays in the Cypriot First Division and has been a fixture near the top of the domestic table, with repeated appearances in UEFA club competition. That European participation is the commercial draw for a betting sponsor: continental group-stage and qualifying matches carry the club’s shirt and stadium branding to television audiences well beyond Cyprus.
Cyprus itself has grown into a base for online gambling and B2B suppliers, a position set out in TGE’s profile of the island’s iGaming sector. Sports sponsorship is one of the main ways operators build brand recognition in that environment, and shirt and stadium deals with football clubs remain a standard route to reach local bettors.
Karapatakis framed the deal as a long-term commercial relationship rather than a one-off shirt placement.
“Today is a particularly important day for AEK Larnaca, as we announce a new strategic partnership with Novibet, which will be the main sponsor of our team for the next three years. From the first moment of our discussions, we found that we share common values, a common vision and the will to build a partnership with perspective and duration. I am confident that this partnership will contribute substantially to the further development of AEK.”
Novibet did not attach a named executive statement to the announcement, presenting the deal as part of its wider strategy of investing in sports partnerships.
What to watch
The immediate test is how the two sides turn the branding rights into the fan activations both have flagged, and whether the sponsorship travels with AEK Larnaca into European competition, where the exposure is worth most to an operator. The wider question is whether the deal signals a period of Novibet building its brand independently through sponsorships after its acquisition and listing plans fell through, and how gambling sponsorship in Cypriot and European football holds up as regulators in several markets tighten rules on betting advertising around sport.
Source: AEK Larnaca
