The topic of gambling addiction is never far from the headlines, and for the sport of football the link is especially problematic because so many clubs have historically been sponsored by gambling firms.
This means their logos have been plastered on the front of shirts, training kits, and other merchandise, which is then seen by and promoted to everyone that watches or supports the team in question.
This includes a great number of supporters under the age of 16, which is at odds with the current drive to clean up gambling and keep it away from those who are at risk and those that are under age.
The Government is even considering a blanket ban on gambling firms making deals to be a club’s shirt sponsor, and this will hit the clubs in the pocket, as these deals can be worth millions of pounds per season.
How are the gambling firms and the football clubs responding to this pressure from lobbyists and the government?
How Many Premier League Teams Have Gambling Sponsors?
Interestingly, the Premier League isn’t the prime target for betting companies, but for the 2021/22 campaign there were still 10 teams out of 20 sporting the branding of a betting site on the front of their shirts, 9 for the 22/23 campaign, and 7 for the 23/24 season.
That’s 50%, 45%, and 35% respectively, making gambling the biggest sponsorship sector but declining quickly, with the next biggest sector being financial services.
This is a pretty consistent ratio too (aside from this year) if we look back at the number of teams sponsored by gambling firms over the last few years:
- 23/24 – 7
- 22/23 – 9
- 21/22 – 10
- 20/21 – 8
- 19/20 – 10
- 18/19 – 9
- 17/18 – 8
- 16/17 – 10
As you can see, it has been wavering between 40% and 50% for some time, and although it dipped towards the lower end of the spectrum as we entered the 2020s, it was back up to the higher end of the scale again until 23/24. This is partly because newly promoted teams find it so difficult to turn down the money that betting firms can offer.
But shirt sponsors are only part of the story, because many teams also have official gambling partners.
For the current 23/24 season, the teams with gambling sponsors or partnerships of any kind, including financial market trading apps, are:
| Team | Shirt Sponsor | Sleeve Sponsor | Gambling Partner |
|---|---|---|---|
| AFC Bournemouth | Dafabet | – | – |
| Arsenal | – | – | – |
| Aston Villa | BK8 | Trade Nation | – |
| Brentford | Hollywood Bets | – | – |
| Brighton & Hove Albion | – | – | Betway |
| Burnley | W88 | – | – |
| Chelsea | – | – | – |
| Crystal Palace | – | – | – |
| Everton | Stake.com | – | – |
| Fulham | SBOTOP | – | – |
| Liverpool | – | – | Interwetten/188Bet |
| Luton | – | – | – |
| Man City | – | – | 8XBet |
| Man Utd | – | – | Betfred |
| Newcastle Utd | – | – | Fun88 |
| Nottingham Forest | – | – | – |
| Sheffield United | – | – | – |
| Tottenham | – | – | – |
| West Ham | Betway | – | – |
| Wolves | – | 6686.com | – |
Those of you that know the Premier League well will already know that seven teams, Arsenal, Crystal Palace, Chelsea, Luton, Notts Forest, Sheffield United, and Tottenham, which have no affiliation with any betting companies at all, in the UK at least.
In fact, Sheffield United remained without sponsor at all rather than accepting offers from gambling companies, and Luton once partnered with Gamstop; whereas Tottenham have official betting partners in Latin America and North America, so their moralistic stance falters once they leave the UK apparently.
The tide seems to be turning then, but that’s still a good 65% of Premier League teams earn money in some way through sponsorship by betting brands for the 2023/24 season. Although it’s down 20% from the 22/23 season, which is significant.
Of those with shirt sponsors, the deals they have in place are worth the following:
| Team | Deal Amount | Deal Duration |
|---|---|---|
| AFC Bournemouth | Undisclosed | 2022-2024 |
| Aston Villa | Undisclosed | 2023-2026 |
| Brentford | £3 million per season | 2021-Unknown |
| Burnley | £8 million | 2023-2024 |
| Everton | £10 million+ | 2022-Unknown |
| Fulham | £10 million | 2023-2024 |
| West Ham | £10 million per season | 2019-2025 |
Smaller amounts will be made from sleeve and official betting partner deals, and some clubs even have official betting partners for different areas of the world, meaning they can be promoting numerous betting brands at the same time.
However, this will soon change, as in April of 2023 the Premier League teams collectively agreed to remove all gambling sponsorship from the front of their jerseys, starting from the end of the 2025/26 season.
That means there will be 0% of teams with a gambling brand as their main front of shirt sponsor, zero, although it doesn’t stop clubs having official betting partners and other types of gambling sponsorship such as sleeve perhaps, or pitch side hoardings.
If this is to be the case then it seems like a well intended but ultimately pointless gesture from the Premier League, but one that is no doubt only happening at all because of pressure from lobbying groups.
Gambling Sponsorship in the English Football League
You might expect the Premier League to be the holy grail of sponsorship deals, but actually, for gambling companies at least, the Championship is an equally big target, or it was until recently.
This was certainly the case in the 2019/20 season, when 17 out of 24 clubs were wearing the brands of betting firms on their jerseys, as we covered in our article at the time. In the 20/21 season there were 13 teams wearing betting brands and only 10 during the 21/22 campaign. For the 23/24 campaign just 6 teams in the EFL Championship have gambling brands as front of shirt sponsors, so it is on the decline here too.
Still, over the last few seasons, between 50% and 70% of teams have played wearing a gambling firm’s branding, compared to between 40% and 50% in the Premier League, and in terms of other kinds of sponsorship deals the numbers are still high.
The Championship is watched by many many fans, big teams are involved, but the cost to the sponsor is much lower. This makes it a perfect place to get value for money for bookmakers and the like, but it seems the cubs themselves are starting to look for alternatives for socail responsibility reasons.
However, the same cannot be said for the bottom two leagues in the EFL (although the EFL itself is sponsored by Skybet), and the stats speak for themselves.
| League | Team With Gambling Shirt Sponsors | Teams With Other Gambling Sponsorship Deals |
|---|---|---|
| Championship | 6 | 8 |
| League 1 | 0 | 1 |
| League 2 | 0 | 2 |
If you are wondering how the Championship can have a different number of sponsorship deals than it can have shirt sponsorship deals, it’s because many deals only cover specific criteria. So a shirt deal may cover the front of the shirt only, or it may also include the betting firm as the club’s official betting partner.
However, some teams have a non-gambling related shirt sponsor and an official betting partner deal with a sportsbook, while others have both a gambling related shirt sponsor and further sponsorship deals with other gambling companies.
You can see far less interest from betting brands in the bottom two tiers of English football, and this is normal as local companies tend to take the packages offered by lower league clubs, while national and international brands are more likely to throw themselves at clubs in the top two footballing tiers which get better TV coverage.
Are Fewer Gambling Companies Sponsoring Football Clubs?
Despite so much pressure on football as a whole to do something about gambling harm, including the potential new laws banning shirt sponsorship all together, the reaction from clubs and brands has been mixed.
The Championship has seen a huge drop in front of shirt sponsors from gambling companies over the last few seasons, but the reasons for this aren’t 100% clear. In some cases it may be down to the political heat, and in others it may be more to do with a club’s moralistic stand point (Forest Green Rovers are a good example), while for some it may simply be because the best offer was from a different sector.
In the Premier League there was no change worth mentioning until the 2023 announcement that not a single betting company would feature on the shirt of any team in the league from the 2026/27 onwards. Even before this though, teams were starting to shy away from gambling brands, and now it’s only those with less money in the bank that are hanging on.
Everton are, or should we say ‘were’ a good example. They dropped their gambling sponsors, SportPesa, mid-contract, because the brand no longer fitted their commercial strategy. This was a big deal because at £7 million a year it was the biggest sponsorship agreement Everton had ever signed.
(We say ‘were’ because in the 22/23 season they partnered with Stake.com as their long term shirt sponsor, just two years after saying they would ideally never do so again…)
However, Everton are a big club in the Premier League and not only do they have other sources of income, but they could pretty much guarantee that another company would come along and want to fill the gap – and this is exactly what happened when they signed a deal with Cazoo, worth even more at £9 or £10 million per year. Clubs in the leagues below do not have the same luxury, with the financial gulf between them making lucrative sponsorship deals difficult to turn down.
This isn’t stopping all clubs though. Among others, Tranmere Rovers and Luton Town will not accept sponsorship money from gambling companies, and are actively combatting harmful gambling by offering help to those affected and promoting responsible gambling.
There have been some other reactions too. Interestingly, in League 1, Ipswich Town’s shirt sponsor in 2021 was Magical Vegas, but they gifted their deal to the Carers Trust, so although a gambling firm was still footing the bill a charity was getting the publicity.
Paddy Power did something similar in 2019 when they sponsored Huddersfield, although for them it was more of a publicity stunt than an act of charity. They sponsored the shirt but agreed to remove their branding, leaving it just showing the club’s colours. They called it the ‘Save Our Shirts’ campaign and did the same at four other clubs.
Some gambling companies are even getting behind the proposed ban on football advertising, with Entain removing all advertising from their brands (so Ladbrokes, Coral, and others) from football shirts, pitches, and websites. They will not sponsor football in any way and even want broadcast advertisements limited.
What Will Happen if Gambling Brands are Banned From Football Jerseys?
If a ban comes in – which isn’t really necessary the way things are going naturally – then we can probably expect to see gambling companies trying to find ways of staying present in the world of football without directly advertising.
For example, many companies already use their expensive TV advertising time to promote responsible gambling rather than their offers or new products. This still advertises the brand, but in a more positive light and without attempting to hook customers with a specific campaign.
Some version of advertising boards saying “Betting Brand X Says Please Gamble Responsibly” might be how they do it, as they will still want their brands to get picked up in TV footage and media coverage.
Of course, if the ban affects more than just the front of the shirt then this will be much harder to do, and brands will have to turn to social media instead, maybe even fan sites and the like.
They could even start to develop non gambling products and promote them instead. A ‘Betting Brand X Blog’ that is separate from the gambling site itself perhaps.
However, they will have to be tactful as their reputations are at stake, so whatever they do will have to be carefully thought through to avoid bad press and even potentially fines or license suspensions.
Something else we are starting to see is the introduction of trading websites sponsoring football shirts. SpreadEx and FBS are two that spring to mind, who have sponsored Sunderland and Leicester respectively. SpreadEx has a sports betting side now, and although FBS focuses on FOREX trading, for many this is only a slightly different shade of betting.
This sort of sponsorship could quite possibly be a more common occurrence over the next few years.
