Half of the Premier League’s 20 clubs have sponsorship or advertising deals with unlicensed gambling companies that could be illegal next year under plans being developed by the government.
An eight-week consultation on proposals to ban sponsorship from gambling companies not licensed in the UK closes on Wednesday, with licensed operators such as Ladbrokes and William Hill pitted against the Premier League in a battle that could cost clubs tens of millions of pounds.
The league is understood to be lobbying against a ban on the grounds that the services offered by primarily Asia-facing betting companies and online casinos are not available in the UK, although anyone with a VPN can open an account and place a bet in minutes.
Analysis conducted by the Guardian has found the number of top-flight clubs who have commercial relationships with unlicensed operators has risen from six to 10 over the summer.
The increase is likely to have been influenced by the league’s decision to impose a voluntary ban from this season on front-of-shirt sponsorship deals with gambling companies.
Everton announced a new three-year sleeve sponsorship deal with the crypto casino Stake.com, and Fulham moved their sponsorship with SBOTOP from the players’ shirts to their training kit, while eight other clubs including Chelsea and Tottenham have commercial deals that include perimeter advertising at their stadiums and/or player branding.
One company, 8XBet, which is licensed in the Caribbean island of Curaçao, has deals with Chelsea, Newcastle, Aston Villa, Ipswich and Coventry.
Unregulated betting has grown considerably in recent years, with unlicensed operators earning £379m from users in the UK in the first half of 2025 according to the Campaign for Fairer Gambling, giving them 9% of Britain’s £8.2bn online gaming marketplace, up from 2% in 2022.
The government has moved to clamp down on unlicensed operators because they do not offer the customer protections such as affordability checks and spending limits provided by regulated betting firms, and the growth of the unregulated market has been linked to financial harm, addiction and suicide.
Everton’s sponsorship deal with Stake has been seized upon by campaigners given that Andy Burnham is a fan of the club and attended their opening game of the season against Crystal Palace.
One of the UK’s biggest betting companies, Entain, which owns Ladbrokes, has written to all 10 Premier League clubs linked to unlicensed operators this week and its letter to Everton makes reference to Burnham’s position.
“The risk to football, sport integrity, and society is real,” the letter states. “Unlicensed operators are not required to offer the safeguards that licensed operators must, including Gamstop self-exclusion, deposit and spending limits, and affordability checks.
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“This removes the protections most likely to prevent consumer harm, meaning vulnerable customers unfairly pay the price for the partnerships that their clubs make.
“Everton’s association with Stake.com is particularly at odds with the prime minister’s longstanding support for the club. It seems unimaginable that, having made his government’s opposition to unlicensed gambling agreements clear, Andy Burnham would become a billboard for unregulated gaming by wearing the club’s current strip.”
In correspondence with operators the gambling minister, Vicky Foxcroft, is understood to have made clear that the government plans to introduce the ban next year, although it will face pressure from the Premier League to allow existing contracts such as Everton’s to run their course.
The league’s insistence on protecting a significant revenue stream for the clubs is understandable but its reluctance to combat unlicensed gambling operators also contains an element of risk.
There is growing evidence that unregulated betting companies are a main fund of pirated sports rights through advertising. The growth of illegal streaming poses a potential threat to the Premier League’s £12bn TV rights deals.
The Campaign for Fairer Gambling’s 2024-25 national report highlighted the symbiotic relationship between sports piracy and unlicensed gambling, with 89% of illegal streams in the UK featuring adverts for black market bookmakers.
Football club sponsorship also appears crucial in driving punters towards the unregulated market, with a Frontier Economics study cited in the government’s consultation saying sponsorship deals are the second-largest driver of consumer awareness of unlicensed operators after social media advertising.