The constant involvement of betting within football is tiring. Rather than turn on the footy to watch sport, you’re serenaded by betting companies looking for their next customer. Business, yes? Bombardment, sadly yes as well.
Vitalii Mykolenko (Everton) on the right, and Kyle Walker-Peters(Burnley) on the left, both wearing a Premier League kit featuring a front-shirt gambling sponsor.
The influence of betting in sport cannot be denied; it’s on the high street, on your phone, on the TV whenever you choose to watch your team lose. Ok, maybe I’m projecting a little there. Betting has become a part of sporting culture, for some people it’s what makes up their sporting experience.
Within England’s top two leagues, the Championship and the Premier League, the influence of betting could be argued to have poisoned the game.
55% of teams in the Premier League feature betting sponsors on the front of their shirts, and despite this being prohibited from the 26/27 season onwards, there is still a lack of regulation on the displaying of betting sponsors on shirt sleeves and around the stadium.
At the moment, 3 teams feature gambling sponsors on their shirt sleeves, but given the changes, it’s likely to increase; same message, different location.
In the Championship, just 25% of clubs feature that front-facing gambling sponsor. While this number is comparatively lower compared to the Premier League, it still dominates over the other prominent sponsoring industries including; airlines, beverages and food, entertainment, fashion, heating and financial services.
Behind the numbers, betting companies have seeped further into football. An example of this comes at Stoke City, with Bet365, a locally grown betting company, having the naming rights to the Potters’ stadium.
Bet365 stadium, Home of Stoke City FC
With a Championship side usually partnering with sponsors for an average of 2.2 years, having Bet365 as Stoke’s sponsors since 2012 highlights the gradually increasing hold betting has within football.
Having a gambling sponsor can majorly benefit smaller clubs, they can receive up to double their income from sponsors if they secure the contract.
Lower league teams relying on sponsors from: regional firms, local universities, car dealerships and recruitment agencies might highlight the great impact of football teams on local business ecosystems, but it also shows how the divide between leagues financially, and therefore in terms of growth, will only continue to increase.
For the scarcity of sleeve sponsors in the gambling industry, the upcoming changes next season could see a massive shift in sponsor involvement around kits.
Wherever the betting sponsor is seen, it could be argued to be unethical. Some contracts require players to wear the kits, regardless of their beliefs. This leaves players like Abdoulaye Doucoure (Everton) and Adama Traore (West Ham), practicing Muslims, wearing a kit featuring a brand which contradicts their religious practices.
Adama Traore (left), wearing a kit brandishing a sports betting company, battling against Leon Bailey (right), who is also wearing a kit featuring a betting company – Image Credit: West Ham United FC
This begs us to ask whether the influence of betting companies within football is becoming too much, where players are forced to represent a brand that goes against every fibre of their being.
Introducing the requirement to wear kits within player contracts combined with the scarcity of players refusing to wear these shirts mean that this will hardly change. As gambling sponsors bring clubs tens of millions, brand representation may be considered more crucial to the club than the player and their beliefs.
The last major case of protest against wearing betting sponsors came through Papiss Cisse in 2013 during his time at Newcastle United. Refusing to wear the shirt with payday-loan sponsor Wonga, which went against his Islamic beliefs, Cisse protested, backed by teammates including Cheick Tiote, Demba Ba, and Hatem Ben Arfa.
Despite the protest, it was resolved and the players continued to wear the shirts; gambling had won the battle.
BETTING BEYOND THE PITCH
With technological developments, including more frequent advertising and mobile phone apps, accessibility to sports betting is at its easiest. Even on apps like Sofascore, if you simply wanted to check the scoreline or look at match stats, betting is the sole advert every time (in this app its Bet365).
If I wanted to access a ‘sports app’, just searching up ‘sports’ alone on the Google Play Store saw sports betting apps take the first 10 search results. Google saw the same results, with the top 8 results featuring both words ‘sport’ and ‘bet’, only interrupted by a Cambridge Dictionary definition of ‘bet’.
Sky, whose Sky Sports division are the largest footballing broadcasters in the UK, have their own app dedicated to betting. It’s the most prevalent sponsor in the EFL, sponsoring the English Football Leagues for the past 13 years. By the end of this sponsorship agreement, Sky Bet would have sponsored the EFL for a lengthy 16 years.
Picture of one of the goals at Valley Parade (Bradford City’s Stadium) showing Sky Bet banners, sponsors of the EFL
For betting apps like these, increased regulations have made it safer than before. Positively, lowering the limits set by the user is immediate, only making it safer. Despite this, there are options to increase the limit, and although it requires a human worker to approve, the only major conflicting factor is the time it takes to increase the limit.
The prompting and introduction of betting limits on apps has only been more strictly enforced in recent times. In October 2025, the UK Gambling Commission updated the terms of the License Conditions and Code of Practice, which is required to be adhered to for companies to hold a Gambling Commission licence, which is required by law.
RTS 12A,12C,12E require companies to prompt an online betting user to set a financial limit as early as possible, these limits must be easily accessible via the fewest links possible on homepages of apps/sites, and users without financial limits must be prompted annually to review their decision.
While one-size-fits-all policies are contributing to making gambling a safer pastime, there is one common flaw amongst all apps. The app can’t ever personally know its user.
Yes, the user’s personal information is stored and available for the site to view, but how could they ever know if a user has multiple accounts with different betting sites, and their company is part of an ongoing addiction?
The app doesn’t know the personal nature of the person placing these bets, it only knows basic information and betting choices/patterns which form a statistic-centred view on a person. Most things in this world are individual and situational, so why shouldn’t betting be the same?
IS THE BETTING WORLD A SUDDEN CHANGE IN LIFESTYLE?
Premier League logo
Fantasy Premier League (and other football leagues) are leagues where players create their own teams with Premier League players each ‘Game Week’ and earn points dependent on stats. The minimum age to participate in these leagues is 13.
Prizes can be won by anyone on the global stages if they are top performers, but it’s more common amongst local leagues for mates to bet a little money on or create a forfeit.
While this differs from betting because there is skill and more favourable odds involved, the actions of placing money down and the prize pool being at jeopardy is no different.
In a 2014 study by Ryan J. Martin and Sarah E. Nelson, it was found that people who place money on these fantasy leagues are more likely to engage in other forms of sports betting. While it doesn’t necessarily guarantee a life of gambling problems, it shows that even from adolescence, especially young men, are being attracted towards betting natures disguised with a friendly, competitive edge.
Betting: Beneficial or Bankrupting?
While this article appears to cast a negative cloud over gambling, it wouldn’t be fair to disregard the economic impact the gambling industry has for the country and for teams looking to develop.
Paying £4 billion in tax (with around £1 billion coming from physical shops) and supporting over 100,000 jobs, the gambling industry majorly contributes to society during times of unemployment and increased taxation. It helps the treasury and local councils both directly and indirectly through that £1 billion figure and a further £60 million in business rates.
Furthermore, ESA retail found that 89% of betting shop customers combine their trips to betting shops with other local businesses. At a time where consumerism and monopolies are swarming markets, betting customers could be a source to save our high streets and local businesses.
William Hill – A a British gambling company founded in 1934.
For the individual, gambling might provide an escape or alternate focus for them which may help with stress. Sports betting can improve cognitive functions as conscious gamblers analyse stats, recognise patterns and seek to make informed bets.
So….Gamble>Game or Gamble<Game?
The benefits have no way of outweighing the negatives that gambling and sports betting bring football. In 2021, the University of Bristol found it ten times more likely to find betting shops in deprived areas (in Glasgow, Liverpool, Middlesborough and London) than affluent areas.
Additionally, nearly 10% of school pupils have a gambling venue within a 5 minute walk, affecting three quarters of a million students across 2,000 schools nationwide.
This isn’t coincidence, this is targeted and cunningly planned by these gambling companies. Profit blinds their ability to see the lives they destroy, the sports they sap the passion out of as new generations watch the game to see where their money ends up rather than their team battle for the badge.
Gambling With Lives state that up to 500 young people die yearly due to suicide related to betting.
That’s a life cut short per day to odds in a match.
“The corruption of the best things gives rise to the worst” – David Hume. It’s a quote which resonates when looking at this topic.
Football, once the sport of the working-class, something which brought mankind together, now serves the poor, not through a shared experience of class-created poverty, but psychologically-altered betting choices, manipulated by the fingers of the greedy.