The Premier League starts again tonight, and one of the key changes that some viewers may not be aware of is the voluntary ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships.
Many will view this as a win – I’ve consistently cited a YouGov poll which showed that 77% of those surveyed agreed with the ban.
All 20 member clubs of the 2022/23 Premier League unanimously agreed to this and the decision was announced back in 2023, with clubs given some wiggle room to adapt to the 2026/27 implementation season.
It’s a well-intentioned initiative. Specific front-of-shirt sponsors are something which I associate with many clubs from my early years of watching football.
Lots of viewers around my age will probably associate Manchester United with AIG, Chelsea with Samsung. I’ll throw in a few rogue ones and say that I still vividly remember Fulham’s LG sponsorship and, perhaps more pertinently, West Ham United’s deal with betting firm SBOBET.
This visibility and relatability is what betting companies value, and they have valued it more and more over the past decade. In 2007/08 there were four gambling sponsors in the Premier League, but in 2025/26 there were 11.
So the decision to ban something which an approximate 1.4 million of the UK population have first-hand problems with, is rightly only accessible to those over the age of 18, and which 77% of people think should be eradicated – in essence “a growing problem” – seems good on the surface, right?
But it isn’t. Over the summer, gambling companies have been clever about their deals with Premier League clubs. Remember, they’re still allowed stadium sponsorships, LED advertising board sponsorships, shirt sleeve sponsorships and training kit sponsorships.
Anyone thinking that they’ll tune into a Premier League game and gambling sponsors will have miraculously disappeared is wrong.
Does the ban benefit the bookies?
In fact, it may even become more prevalent. One source told SBC News that he believes the Premier League ban is actually a positive for betting brands.
“The end of front-of-shirt sponsorship is a very good thing for betting brands. The industry has been forced to think differently,” said Eddie Gold, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of The Gold Studios, an advertising company.
“This isn’t about simply moving the same money from one sponsorship asset to another. It’s about asking how we can make that money work harder.
“What’s exciting is the creativity already coming out of the industry. Brands are looking at creators, entertainment, original content and digital experiences that fans actively choose to engage with.
“The ambition isn’t just to replace the reach that’s been lost, but to improve on it, drive better engagement and ultimately deliver better performance. The logo might be coming off the shirt, but betting brands aren’t leaving the pitch.”
There’s still a gambling presence in the Premier League
That creativity can be seen in various deals signed over the summer.
The biggest one is arguably Manchester United’s training kit deal with Betway, rumoured to be worth around £20m.
Betway is partnered with Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal, so if you watch any games at Old Trafford, The Etihad or The Emirates, you’re almost guaranteed to see some form of Betway advert.
Betano has struck deals with Tottenham Hotspur and Aston Villa in the form of a training kit and shirt sleeve partnership respectively. Be prepared to see a lot of that operator this year despite the firm having to duck out of its front-of-shirt deal with Villa.
Relatively quick research allowed me to find that 16 out of 20 of this year’s Premier League sides still have deals with gambling firms in some capacity. The likes of Manchester United, AFC Bournemouth, Newcastle United and Liverpool have multiple.
And while there are a grand total of zero front-of-shirt sponsors and only three shirt sleeve sponsors, the overwhelming majority of games you watch at stadiums or on the television will feature gambling advertisements.
England follows Italy and Spain
A sports sponsorship ban for bookmakers isn’t new. Italy imposed a complete ban on gambling sponsorships in 2019, though bookmakers found loopholes via ‘infotainment deals’.
Spain had a similar crackdown at the end of the 2020/21 season, with front-of-shirt deals and naming rights banned.
Has this impacted gambling activity in those countries? No.
And while campaigners are largely focused on the visibility of gambling to children and vulnerable people, including those recovering from gambling harm, and are not necessarily interested in driving down gambling revenue, the correlation is still there.
The average Competitive Earnings Baseline (CEB) – Blask’s estimate of the most probable revenue performance across a market’s brands – has risen each year since Italy and Spain’s bans were implemented in these countries.
Spain’s CEB since 2021 (year of the ban):
Jan 2021: $69.74m
Jan 2022: $75.31m
Jan 2023: $109.7m
Jan 2024: $144.2m
Jan 2025: $148.3m
Jan 2026: $159.9m
Italy’s CEB since 2018 (year before the ban):
Jan 2018: $192.6m
Jan 2019: $182.5m
Jan 2020: $215m
Jan 2021: $319.5m
Jan 2022: $290.2m
Jan 2023: $364.4m
Jan 2024: $418.3m
Jan 2025: $500.1m
Jan 2026: $553.5m
Yes, there are a couple of anomalies in Italy, where a stricter ban has been imposed, but the figures don’t exactly paint a picture of decline.
And while a Premier League ban may be more impactful as it has more of a global audience, we’re still discussing two of the traditional “big five” European Leagues in LaLiga and Serie A here.
There is little to suggest that a front-of-shirt sponsorship ban on bookmakers in the Premier League will curb gross gaming revenue figures in the UK.
Why gambling sponsors are so sought after
Gambling’s relationship with the front of football shirts in the UK isn’t ending, though; we have seen deals agreed in the EFL. Seven Championship sides have front-of-shirt deals with gambling firms.
It should be noted that these front of shirt sponsors – the likes of Midnite, Coral and BOYLESports – have a clear UK focus rather than a global one, but they are still front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships nonetheless.
And why would clubs turn them down? It’s widely reported that gambling firms pay an average of 40% more than other industries for the same shirt space, and in some cases up to double.
This is why clubs lower down the league will still take these deals and Premier League clubs will still look for deals of another nature with gambling companies.
Under the Premier League’s Profit and Sustainability Rules (PSR), clubs cannot exceed £105m in losses over three years.
For smaller clubs, gambling sponsorships account for a significant portion of total commercial revenue. They are obviously going to look for other avenues when a potential huge money source goes missing.
Some viewers may have also taken note of the prominence of crypto firms on club shirts in 2026. It seems crypto may be the gambling replacement.
Kieran Maguire, a well-known sports business journalist, has previously described crypto as “gambling with a small G”.
Through the ban, the Premier League has opened the floodgates to highly volatile, unregulated, and complex cryptocurrency and financial trading platforms.
Take Manchester City’s deal with OKX, Tottenham’s with Kraken, Chelsea’s with BingX, and Etoro’s growing presence in the league.
In the 2023/24 season, eight Premier League clubs had cryptocurrency or online crypto trading partners.
Just one year later, that number nearly doubled to 14 out of 20 clubs, pouring roughly £170m in crypto money into the league.
We can argue all day about which industries should be able to have sponsorship deals. Alcohol, gambling, crypto – the list could go on, but that isn’t the point.
A shift in focus needed
The point is that, in my opinion, the front-of-shirt ban will be ineffective as clubs and operators are already finding workarounds.
Rather than anti-gambling lobbyists celebrating this as a win (which it isn’t), they should be pushing further for the ban on unregulated gambling sponsors in the UK.
The government is currently consulting on this, but firms like Stake still have a shirt sleeve deal with Everton, and BC Game – a notorious offshore operator with, to put it lightly, a marred past – remains Leicester City’s front-of-shirt sponsor.
The continued proliferation of unlicensed operators in UK sport is far more of a concern than a Premier League front-of-shirt ban.
Eliminating these allows for the regulated market to advertise themselves responsibly – and face the consequences if not.
But that is a separate issue entirely. What will happen with that will happen, but for now a futile win for those against gambling sponsors is set to be largely exposed over the next 12-24 months, in my opinion.
