Entain Urges UK Ban on Unlicensed Gambling Sponsorships as 11 Premier League Clubs Hold Such Deals

Entain has renewed its push for a ban on unlicensed gambling sponsorships in UK sports, arguing that the government has not acted fast enough and that the issue now extends well beyond stadium signage. For PSPs and operators in high-risk verticals, the point is simple: the licensed/unlicensed line is getting harder for consumers to spot, and that matters for sponsorship, advertising, and merchant-risk decisions.

1. Entain said 11 of 20 Premier League clubs now have some arrangements with unlicensed gaming entities, up from eight clubs in the previous season. The company made the case that this is no longer a fringe issue in British football, but a pattern that is becoming more common.
2. The latest example cited by Entain was Sunderland, which announced a multi-year partnership with Shuffle, a centralized crypto casino and sports betting platform, replacing LiveScore Bet as the club’s gaming partner. Entain noted that Shuffle does not possess a UK license. It also pointed to Everton’s earlier deal with Stake, one of the leading offshore gaming companies.
3. Entain’s chief executive officer, Stella David, said the government had previously promised to deal with the matter quickly, but did not. She acknowledged that an immediate ban would inconvenience soccer clubs, but said “inconvenience is not an excuse for inaction.”
4. The company also cited its own research showing that four in five consumers “cannot confidently distinguish licensed operators from unlicensed.” That is the practical problem here: if players cannot tell the difference, then sponsorships and ads become a distribution channel for unlicensed brands, even when they look normal on the surface.
5. David argued that any ban should cover digital advertising as well as physical sponsorships. Entain said roughly a fifth of all consumers who use unlicensed operators learned of those platforms through social media ads, which means a ban limited to stadium exposure would leave a large online route open for illegal operators.

Entain’s comments were made in response to a recent DCMS consultation. The company is not alone in pressing for tighter rules, and its message to the government is straightforward: if the goal is to curb unlicensed gambling, then sponsorship and online advertising cannot be treated as separate problems.