Betting firms have become part and parcel of modern day English football, from the day 21 years ago that Fulham became the first Premier League club to agree a front-of-shirt sponsorship with one, to 2023 where nine out of the 20 Premier League teams carry the name of a betting firm on their shirt. However, it goes much further than this; a 2020 study by the University of Stirling found that a gambling sponsor could be seen every 21 seconds of a Premier League match TV broadcast. Advertising hoardings, shirt sleeves, press conferences and even stadiums are littered with the names of betting firms, making it impossible to ignore them.
Despite this, for a lot of fans this is a mere inconvenience or frustration. Their real problem is with the hypocrisy of governing bodies like the FA and the Premier League. They seem happy to profit off an industry worth over £100 billion globally per year, yet ban and ostracise players like Ivan Toney for having an addiction to the very thing they allow to be plastered almost everywhere within football, including on Toney’s shirt.
Young footballers are forced to endorse and work in an environment filled with betting products but are then punished for using them. Surely the nonsensical nature of this is clear.
It may simply come down to greed; whilst the PL is far and away the most lucrative league in Europe, in comparison there are only two other betting firm shirt sponsors in Europe’s top leagues. They don’t need the money, yet continue to associate themselves with something that Public Health England estimates causes 409 suicides a year, out of the 68,000 problem gamblers in the UK.
Steven Caulker being dropped from a potential TV appearance for Bet365 due to his previous positive work on gambling addiction highlights how betting firms appear to prey on the most vulnerable, as they often make their large amounts of profit from a small number of return users. It also sends a massively negative message to other problem gamblers and may make footballers think twice before asking for help or detailing their experiences to help others as Caulker referred to in his statement.
Rob Davies, a Guardian reporter and author, took this idea one step further by saying that betting companies actually target losing customers with VIP programmes offering perks such as football match tickets to keep them coming back for more. He also drew attention to just how much football betting itself has changed, from betting on results to suddenly being able to bet on in-game events such as the next bookings, corners and fouls, imitating casinos or rapid slot-machine play. The adverse effect that this has had cannot be quantified, but it is almost certain that this has contributed to many falling down the slippery slope of addiction.
On top of this, many ex-players and managers happily endorse betting firms, most famously Jose Mourinho and Peter Crouch with their work for PaddyPower. Young fans watching and falling in love with football not only cannot get away from gambling advertisements, but their heroes and idols are often associated with this, normalising it. Furthermore, betting firms appear to exploit the sense of community and camaraderie common amongst football fans (‘everyone’s doing it, it’s just a way to support your club’), undoubtedly contributing to the 55,000 children aged 11-16 who have gambling problems in the UK, according to the Gambling Commission. Many of these children may have been prompted to try it for the first time due to the sheer amount of times they see adverts for it.
The PL has stated that there will be no gambling sponsors on the front of shirts from the 2026/27 season onwards in what seems to be a change for the better. However, many see this merely as a token gesture as betting sponsors may continue to be heavily prevalent on shirt sleeves, LED advertising hoardings that are impossible to miss, and press conferences. There is still a long way to go, not least in terms of the EFL’s record five-year partnership extension with Sky Bet as the League’s title partner which would take it to the end of the 2028/29 campaign.
English football’s governing bodies must do more for the aforementioned 68,000 problem gamblers in the UK. If the dominant involvement of betting sponsors in English football continues, this number will only go up.