Premier League 2026/27 opens with front-of-shirt gambling ban in force, but 16 clubs still have betting partners

The Premier League’s long-planned ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsorships is now live, but it has not pushed betting brands out of the league. Sixteen of the 20 clubs still have some form of gambling partnership, just on different parts of the kit and commercial inventory.

1. The ban was agreed in April 2023 after political and fan pressure, with the aim of avoiding a mandatory prohibition being folded into the review of the 2005 Gambling Act. That worked for the moment: no mandatory ban was included in the Gambling White Paper published a month later, and attempts to attach such a measure to the Football Governance Act and Sports Events Bill were voted down in the House of Lords.
2. Public support for the change appears solid. A YouGov survey found 77 per cent of respondents viewed the ban favourably. The key issue for operators and clubs is not whether front-of-shirt logos disappeared — they did — but how much of the commercial presence can be preserved through other placements.
3. In practice, the sponsorship has just moved around. Clubs are using training kits, shirt sleeves, LED advertising boards and “official betting partner” deals. Manchester United’s training kit deal with Betway is one of the most visible examples, and Betway also sponsors Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Brighton. Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur have sleeve and training kit deals with Betano.
4. Other clubs have built out broader multi-market partnerships. Liverpool has deals with Ladbrokes in the UK and Interwetten in Germany and Austria, while Newcastle United has agreements with BetMGM and 8Xbet. Sunderland, newly promoted, has named LiveScoreBet as its principal partner across sleeves and training wear.
5. Everton still has Stake on its shirt sleeves, even though the operator no longer holds a Gambling Commission licence. That arrangement may face pressure from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), which is currently consulting on a proposed ban on unlicensed gambling sponsorship in sports.

The Premier League model is much narrower than the mandatory restrictions seen in Italy, Spain, Belgium and the Netherlands. Even there, operators found workarounds; in the UK, the market still has more room to manoeuvre, which is exactly why high-risk PSPs should read this as a repositioning exercise rather than an exit.