A University of Bristol study has found that the Premier League’s voluntary ban on front-of-shirt betting sponsorship reduced gambling advertising exposure during live matches by only 10.5%, with operators simply redirecting spend to sleeves, training kits and pitchside boards. The findings, presented to parliamentarians on 21 October, have reignited calls for statutory intervention in UK sports betting marketing.
What the Premier League shirt ban study found
For the fourth year running, researchers from the University of Bristol found football fans were bombarded with gambling ads, recording 15,571 messages during the Premier League opening weekend.
At least one gambling message was visible for five hours and 16 minutes during live coverage, meaning almost one-fifth of broadcast time featured betting marketing.
The findings also uncovered that although the new front-of-shirt restriction virtually eliminated gambling logos from the front of matchday shirts, the analysis estimates this contributed to a reduction of just 10.5% during live matches.
Gambling branding on shirt sleeves and training kits jumped more than threefold – a 362% increase from previous years, while pitchside advertising continued to dominate, accounting for 72% of all messages during live matches.
The researchers analysed every Premier League match broadcast live in the UK during the opening weekend (on August 21 – August 24) alongside 15 hours of Sky Sports News TV and 15 hours of TalkSport radio broadcasts.
They also reviewed organic and paid social media output from 10 major betting site brands with the largest followings.
Project lead Dr Raffaello Rossi
said: “This cannot be presented as a success for self-regulation.”
Why it matters
The study puts fresh pressure on the Premier League’s self-regulatory approach at a sensitive moment for UK operators, who are already contending with duty increases and tighter marketing codes elsewhere in the market.
Rossi presented the findings to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Reform on October 21, and Sir Iain Duncan Smith, the group’s co-chair, said the results show the voluntary approach is failing and that the shirt-front restriction has made little dent in the wider issue.
Rossi said the fall from 2024 cannot be credited to the shirt rule, because much of it came from a sharp drop in sponsorship lead-ins, and that the season’s most anticipated reform delivered little meaningful change in overall exposure to gambling advertising.
For operators and their marketing partners, that is a signal that reputational and regulatory risk around football sponsorship has not meaningfully reduced, even where headline shirt-front deals have ended.
For affiliates, the research underlines how quickly sponsorship budgets migrate within the same ecosystem rather than leaving it. Sleeve branding, pitchside boards and social output now carry a larger share of exposure, which keeps brand-search volume and direct traffic flowing to operator sites even as the most visible shirt deals disappear. Partners monitoring player-acquisition trends in UK football should expect continued scrutiny of these secondary channels rather than any near-term fall in overall betting marketing activity.
The bigger picture
The report lands as UK politicians weigh further restrictions on gambling marketing and taxation, with the Treasury’s Autumn Budget and Machine Games Duty proposals already under debate.
Gambling reform proponents like Ian Duncan Smith and the Coalition to End Gambling Ads have made the most noise this week.
The Premier League’s voluntary ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship has done little to quell calls for mandatory intervention, with gambling reform advocates renewing their calls for restrictions just three months into the new season.
The data also extends a longer pattern identified by the same research team in previous years, when gambling messaging volumes rose sharply despite earlier voluntary measures such as the whistle-to-whistle television ad ban. With regulators in other markets, including Australia, moving towards tighter statutory controls on gambling marketing, the Bristol findings add weight to arguments that self-regulation in UK football has reached its limits. Readers can find related coverage of international ad restrictions in our piece on the ACMA’s new marketing regime for Australian operators.
Sources
- SBC News – Premier League’s voluntary betting sponsor ban slammed as failure
- iGaming Business – Premier League shirt ban cuts gambling exposure by just 10.5%, study finds
- University of Bristol – Study shows gambling ads still flood UK Premier League football coverage
- Gambling.com – Premier League Gambling Ads: Shirt Ban Cut Just 10.5%
- The Lines – Premier League Gambling Messages Down 10.5% Following Sponsor Ban
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