An article in Sports Media notes that, “Gambling messages during live broadcasts of six Premier League matches hit 23,690 – a 240% increase year on year”. They also counted, “More than 10,000 gambling messages detected during match play” and threw in the fact that during the West Ham v Aston Villa game there was around 30 gambling messages a minute.
In effect the number of betting adverts in the UK during the opening weekend of this season was three times higher than last year, according to new report from the University of Bristol – and that rise in gambling adverts is significantly helping to fund football.
Now the normal reaction to this is to focus on gambling and the dangers it brings – and that of course is fair enough. But there is a second issue here which is not being mentioned broadly but is worrying the gambling firms.
Gambling firms are advertising more and more to try and counter the fact that the outcome of each season is getting easier and easier to predict. It may not sit well with me, but the fact is ManC are obviously favourites to win the League since they can buy anyone they want. In fact I have heard it said that if ManC win their “tyranny of the majority” court case in the next week or two, the gambling firms odds on who will win the league will drop so far, no one will place a bet.
Gambling companies like football because basically of its unpredictability. But with Manchester City winning the league five times in the last six years that goes out the window. Yes punters can bet on who comes fourth, or which club is relegated, but such matters don’t have the pazzazz of betting on who will win the league..
What the gambling firms love is the fact that Wolverhampton Wanderers could get into Europe in 2018/9 and now look likely relegation candidates. Or Leicester City doing it in 2019/20 only to be relegated in 2022/23.
Now I want to make it clear I am not therefore saying that gambling should be banned. Indeed I would not be able to afford to run Untold without the income that we get from gambling firms advertising on this site. But things do seem to be getting out of control as according to Addpeople the Premier League “has more betting sponsors than any other type of sponsor,” despite their commitment to dropping them by 2026.
Indeed 40% of teams (eight out of the 20) are sponsored by a betting company, with the next most popular category being financial services.
All that has been clear for quite a while, but with the domination of the game by Manchester City, fewer bets are being put on who is going to win the league this year, next year, or any year. It is an issue that has hit France too with PSG who we play tomorrow, winning all the time (see Arsenal in the Champions League: there is always something going on at PSG).
So the gambling companies are pressuring the league to “make the League competitive again, or all that money you are getting from gambling is going away.”
As things stand the report says that, “During live broadcasts of six Premier League games in 2024/25, the study found that gambling messages, including logos and advertisements shown during live matches, more than trebled from 6,966 at the same time last year to 23,690 this year, which was a 240 per cent increase.”So we are in a situation in which gambling is funding football, but the model is seemingly unsustainable if one team always wins.
The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) says it commits 20 per cent of TV, radio and digital advertising to safer gambling messaging, and provides funding to the UK’s most popular sports, including £40 million to the EFL.
Given that clubs will not be able to have betting companies on their shirts from the start of the 2026/27 season simply sends more and more clubs to have betting sponsors. But betting on who will win the League is quickly coming to an end because a) the odds on ManC winning are so low, and b) the likelihood of anyone else winning is equally low.
So it is just possible that the heyday of gambling companies is coming to an end, but as things stand that looks like it will simply reduce the clubs’ incomes – unless of course the clubs either deduct massive numbers of points from ManC for their infringements alleged in the 115 charges against them, or else enough of the other big clubs resign from the League and form a new English Super League which has strict financial rules, which would stop the sort of sponsorship funding that allowed ManC to build its current dominant position.
