New Betting Sponsorships at Premier League Clubs
Author:
Roy Brindley
Following an agreement made in April 2023, Premier League clubs will withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of matchday shirts at the start of the 2026/27 season. However, before the 2024/25 season’s kick-off, 11 Premiership teams signed agreements with gambling sites to promote their brand logo on kits prime front-and-centre real estate.
Eleven Premiership teams will promote betting companies on their shirt fronts during the 2024/25 season. Across all leagues in many countries, shirt fronts are a valuable piece of real estate. ?Getty
The numbers are up on last season’s figures when eight of the Premier League’s 20 teams and six out of 24 Championship teams dedicated shirt fronts to sponsors who were companies linked to gambling. 2024/25’s figure could rise as Chelsea has not announced a shirt sponsor. Interestingly, established bookmaking firms that were familiar sights on British high streets before the online boom and became top UK online betting sites after it do not feature in the 2024/25 shirt stakes.
Newcomers Bet on Premier Power
Finishing fourth in the 2023/24 Premier League, Aston Villa could be considered the biggest club to be sponsored by a gambling firm. Previously associated with Unibet (2017/18 season) and 32Red, the club has signed a deal for the next two seasons with Betano. Headquartered in Athens, Betano is described as “a partnership with BVGroup”, which runs the BetVictor gambling site.
The company launched in the UK on May 1, 2024, just in time for the betting bonanza that was the Euros. It had been operational in other countries beforehand. Bournemouth’s new sponsor, BJ88, is not yet operational in the British Isles and was only established in 2021. Currently active in Asia and South America, the company has reportedly paid “top dollar” to sponsor Bournemouth for the next two seasons.
The Premier League and Gambling Sponsors ??
With the ban on betting and gambling companies as ‘front of shirt sponsors’ coming in 2026/27, we’ve taken a look at the history of gambling sponsors.
Currently, 35% of the Premier League has a gambling sponsor.
(Thread ??) pic.twitter.com/0TuoyyOABu
— Classic Football Shirts (@classicshirts) August 24, 2023
Crypto’s and the Mystery Site
Stake, a betting site that primarily transacts in cryptocurrencies, is about to enter its third year in partnership with Everton. BC GAME, another crypto-centric gambling site, will see its logo on the shirt fronts of Leicester City players for the first time in 2024. Southampton is a third team that will promote a crypto casino and sportsbook during the 2024/25 season.
Nottingham Forrest partnered up with Kaiyun in August 2023. It is a mysterious Asian-based company with no working websites in the UK, and its links on the team’s official website forward surfers to a Chinese website that non-Chinese residents cannot access. Kaiyun is also Crystal Palace’s sleeve sponsor, and the company had a commercial partnership with Chelsea until the end of June 2024. This secretive and restricted betting platform clearly has plenty of money to spend on marketing via Premier League football clubs.
From Vietnam to the Isle of Man
Crystal Palace has inked a two-year deal with NET88, a Vietnamese company it describes as a “global online gaming platform for sports and gaming fans alike.” Its mid-June announcement came a day after Wolverhampton declared that a “record deal” had been made with the Vietnamese gambling firm Debet, which is now its shirt sponsor.
Of the more transparent sponsorships involving Premier League football sides and fully licensed gambling sites, Brentford is continuing its deal with South African-based betting company Hollywood Bets for a fourth successive season. Isle of Man-based SBOBET, which uses the alias SBOTOP on Fulham’s apparel, will sponsor the club for a second year. Its 2023/24 season deal was reportedly worth ￡10 million.
Betway or the Highway for West Ham?
The most enduring of all football sponsorships is that of West Ham and Betway. It initially began in 2015 and was re-signed for a six-year run in 2019. However, the 2024/25 season will likely be the last these established bedfellows will have together if mainstream media stories are to be believed.
It has been widely reported that Betway was the first gambling company to ring alarm bells about the volume of bets placed on Lucas Paqueta to be booked in four West Ham games last season. Investigations led to the Brazilian star being charged with spot-fixing, a charge that could see the FA impose a lifetime ban from football.
“West Ham are understood to be unhappy with Betway, particularly that they did not speak to them before reporting the suspicious bets to integrity investigators,” one July 2024 press report stated. Paqueta was charged with breaches of FA Rules E5 and F3 on May 23, when the FA said it would make no further comment until the conclusion of this case.
