The Gambling Industry's Holy Grail: Why Sports Betting Is Eating European Football

Gambling companies now sponsor more European football clubs than any other sector. Here is the money behind the relationship, the regulation trying to limit it, and the public health argument for change.

The Premier League's ban on shirt-front gambling sponsorships, which entered into force at the start of the 2025-26 season after years of campaigning, has not eliminated gambling's financial relationship with English football — it has displaced it. Sleeve sponsorships, stadium naming rights, digital perimeter advertising, shorts sponsorships, and training kit deals involving gambling companies continue. The Premier League ban on the most visible placement has been described by public health campaigners as 'a meaningful step' and by gambling industry analysts as 'a contained concession that protects more important commercial relationships.'

Across European football more broadly, gambling company investment in sponsorship has continued to increase despite regulatory pressure in several countries. In Spain's La Liga, gambling companies account for approximately 30 percent of shirt sponsorship value by revenue. In France's Ligue 1, the figure is approximately 22 percent. In Italy's Serie A and Germany's Bundesliga, stricter national advertising regulations have reduced the share, but gambling companies have maintained their presence through digital and broadcast advertising channels that regulations have not yet fully addressed.

The public health case for limiting gambling company involvement in football sponsorship rests on the particular exposure pathway: football is watched by millions of children alongside their parents, gambling advertising in football contexts creates associations between sport, excitement, and gambling behavior that research has found contribute to problem gambling development in susceptible individuals, and the normalization of gambling as a natural companion to sport participation affects the populations for whom sport's health and social benefits are supposed to be most significant.

The industry counter-argument is economic: gambling company revenues support clubs at all levels of the football pyramid, including Championship and lower-league English clubs for whom shirt sponsorship revenue is the difference between financial viability and insolvency. Removing that revenue source without replacing it would harm the sport more than protecting from gambling harm would help it.