The 2026/27 Premier League season has barely been underway for three months, but it’s already clear that the self-imposed ban on betting companies sponsoring team shirt-fronts has satisfied few people.
This can probably be quite easily said of people on both sides of the spectrum. However, it’s the gambling reform proponents like Ian Duncan Smith and the Coalition to End Gambling Ads (CEGR) who have made the most noise this week.
The reignition of campaigning around betting’s visibility in the Premier League follows what has become an almost annual tradition. With the start of the Premier League season, the University of Bristol published its latest research findings on gambling-related harm.
Bristol slams failure of self-regulation
The University of Bristol has conducted studies into gambling marketing in the Premier League for the past four years. This year’s research marks the University’s fourth study into the topic.
Conducted by the University’s Hub for Gambling Harms Research, the study recorded 15,571 cases of what it calls “gambling messages” during the opening weekend of the Premier League alone.
The review found that at least one gambling message was visible for a total of five hours and 16 minutes and that the visibility of gambling logos overall has fallen by just 10.5% from the 2025/26 season.
Researchers have framed this as evidence that the Premier League’s freshly implemented ban on front-of-shirt betting sponsorships – agreed on by 19 of its 20 clubs back in 2023 – has changed very little.
“This cannot be presented as a success for self-regulation,” said Dr Raffaello Rossi, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bristol Business School and Co-Director of Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research.
“Premier League broadcasts contained more gambling messages per game than every other jurisdiction in our comparison, including Germany, Canada and the US.
“Gambling marketing remains an unavoidable part of watching Premier League football and the issue needs to be tackled more effectively.”
The issue with the research is the choice of methodology. Researchers consider something a gambling message every time it is seen during a live broadcast – meaning that one gambling advert, or a logo on a sleeve, is counted as multiple gambling messages throughout the broadcast.
Premier League needs intervention, says MP
However, while I may be treating the research with some scepticism due to the way gambling messages are counted, the researchers do have a point – the front-of-shirt sponsorship ban hasn’t dealt as big a blow to operator marketing as initially expected.
If anything, the ban has simply led to operators and clubs taking their marketing efforts elsewhere, and in greater numbers. The study states that sleeve sponsorships have increased 362% from previous years while pitchside advertising accounted for 72% of all gambling messages during live matches.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. With front-of-shirt space now off limits, operators are looking at other ways to work with football clubs, such as on shirt sleeves, training kits, via social media, and the age-old method of LED advertising around the pitch.
This in turn raises the question as to whether the front-of-shirt ban was worth implementing in the first place. Of course, for proponents of the strictest gambling reforms, a total ban on all betting advertising in the league, and in UK sport in general, would be preferable.
“These findings are further evidence that the voluntary approach to gambling advertising in football is failing,” said Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Reform (APPG GH).
“After repeated promises of reform, fans continue to be exposed to thousands of gambling messages during Premier League coverage. The front-of-shirt restriction has barely scratched the surface of the issue.
“We cannot continue to rely on the gambling and football industries to regulate themselves.”
The stakeholders who wouldn’t be keen on this outcome, as alluded to by Duncan Smith himself, are the football clubs themselves. There is a reason why 19 of the Premier League’s 20 clubs and 19 of the Championship’s 24 clubs have a betting partner – money.
According to Ampere Analysis, betting companies accounted for 13% of new sponsorship deals signed so far in 2026/27. Although overall club income from betting fell from £155m to £192m year-over-year, the sector remains a reliable commercial partner to the sport.
Concerns around betitng’s societal impact remain widespread, however.
Campaigners felt the Premier League’s 2023 compromise, and the limited action of the Gambling Act review White Paper around betting sponsorship, did not go far enough – and in 2026, this opinion has not gone anywhere.
