How Did Casino Brands Take Over Football Shirts and Why That Era Is Ending | OneFootball

Eleven of the twenty Premier League clubs in 2025/26 carry a gambling or casino brand on the front of their shirt. More than half the top flight. It is a number that would have seemed extraordinary twenty years ago and is about to become impossible, because from the 2026/27 season, that space is closed to gambling companies for good.

How did the industry get here, how much is actually at stake, and what happens to European football when one of its biggest commercial relationships is forced to restructure?

The Clubs Carrying Casino Logos in 2025/26

The scale of gambling sponsorship in the current Premier League season is worth spelling out clearly. Aston Villa carry Betano. Bournemouth wear bj88. Brentford front Hollywoodbets. Crystal Palace display NET88. Everton sport Stake.com. Fulham carry SBOTOP. Nottingham Forest wear Bally's. Sunderland display W88. West Ham carry BoyleSports. Wolverhampton wear DEBET. Burnley wore 96.com before their relegation.

That is eleven clubs in a single division. The pattern repeats across the Championship and the lower English tiers, and across La Liga, Serie A, and the Bundesliga where no equivalent ban exists. Casino and betting brands have become the default commercial partner for clubs that cannot attract elite-level tech or airline money.

The Premier League club statistics on Playmaker show the full performance picture for every club in the division  and when you cross-reference the league table with shirt sponsor categories, the concentration of gambling brands in the mid-table and lower half becomes striking. 

The Commercial Logic Behind the Shirt

Premier League broadcasts reach 3.2 billion people across 190 countries. A logo on the chest of a footballer is not a static advertisement. It appears in live coverage, in goal celebrations, in press photography, in highlights packages, in social clips, in replica kits sold globally, and in video games. For a casino brand with an international customer base, that visibility is close to unmatched in marketing terms.

The economics are straightforward. Mid-table clubs regularly receive double from a gambling sponsor compared to what a non-gambling brand would pay for the same placement. 

When Cristiano Ronaldo returned to Manchester United in 2021, $60 million worth of shirts were sold in ten days. Every one of those shirts carried the sponsor's logo. That multiplication effect where a transfer or a trophy or a Champions League run amplifies the value of a sponsor's placement exponentially, is why casino brands have paid top-tier rates for mid-tier clubs. The upside is enormous if the club has a good season.

The Details of The Ban

In April 2023, Premier League clubs agreed to voluntarily remove gambling brands from the front of matchday shirts from the 2026/27 season onwards. The agreement is specifically limited to front-of-shirt placement. Sleeve sponsors, in-stadium perimeter boards, training kit, and official "partner" designations on social media are all still permitted.

That distinction matters. The ban removes the single most visible asset, but it does not end the commercial relationship between gambling companies and football clubs.

Where the Money Goes Next

Only Bournemouth had publicly confirmed a shirt sponsor replacement ahead of the 2026/27 season at time of writing, with stadium partner Vitality stepping in on reduced terms. Reports link Everton and Fulham to financial services interest, while Chelsea - who spent three consecutive seasons opening without a shirt sponsor - brought in IFS.ai as a global partner.

For fans who want to understand which casino platforms are actually operating legitimately behind these sponsorship deals, the AskGamblers expert reviews cover the major operators in detail including several that have held or currently hold Premier League shirt deals. 

The European Dimension

The Premier League ban does not apply elsewhere. La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1 have no equivalent restriction, and casino brands that lose their shirt-front presence in England are already evaluating Spanish, Italian, and German clubs as alternative placements. As The Football Week noted in their analysis of the shirt sponsorship market, the incentives that tied iGaming to elite football have not disappeared but the rules have simply changed where in Europe those incentives can be activated most visibly.

It’s Not Quite The End Yet

Eleven clubs out of twenty carrying gambling logos in a single Premier League season is the high-water mark of an era. The voluntary ban closes the most prominent channel, but sleeve deals, stadium partnerships, and European shirt placements mean the relationship between casino brands and football does not end in 2026/27.

It restructures. The money moves. And football clubs which have built commercial models around gambling revenue for over a decade  will spend the next few seasons discovering whether any other industry values their audience the same way.