45% Betting Ads in Premier League Finale

Most tobacco advertising was banned too after the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Act 2002^[1], with some sponsorship restrictions phased in later. For the beginning of the 2026/27 season? Front-of-shirt gambling sponsors will be banned in the Premier League outright.

Of course, shirts are far from the only advertisements used during Premier League football. There are sleeves, shirt backs, chairs, hoardings, half-time tv ads - and one other thing, banners.

Banners are displayed, very prominently, especially for those watching on television or live stream. In the first ten minutes of the Premier League’s final game between Arsenal and Crystal Palace on the 24th May 2026, we saw plenty of gambling advertising on the banners. It accounted for 4.5 minutes out of the full 10, or 45% of all ads.

However, it was the amount of time dedicated to operators without a current UKGC licence, 2 full minutes, just shy of half the total gambling advertising time, that surprised me most. Is the shirt sponsorship conversation missing a rather large detail?

Football seems to have a growing relationship with offshore-facing gambling operators that sit entirely outside of the UK regulatory system.

Betting Banners Dominated The Opening 10 Minutes

Our research started by studying LED banner ads across several variations of the Premier League’s finale:

• The BBCs highlights reel^[2]
• SkySports’ highlights reel^[3]
• Full Fubo coverage

After watching, it became clear that a couple of the sports betting sites with repeated banners didn’t have a UKGC licence. They seemed to be getting a considerable amount of banner-time, so we tracked the opening ten minutes.

Betting operators accounted for 45% of visible banner time during the sample. More notably, almost half of all betting-related banner exposure came from operators not appearing on the UK Gambling Commission public register at the time of writing. Kaiyun, an Asia-facing sports betting platform, took up 15% of the visible banner time alone.

Both the BBC and Sky Sports highlight packages for the match actually featured betting-related LED advertising in more than half of visible banner rotations. Even condensed coverage designed to show only key moments repeatedly displayed gambling operators without UKGC licences around the pitch perimeter.

The upcoming shirt sponsorship ban gives the impression gambling visibility in football is about to dramatically reduce. Yet, viewers are still being exposed to heavy volumes of betting advertising through perimeter banners visible throughout live coverage, highlights packages and social clips.

The Premier League & Offshore Sponsorship

While shirt sponsorships will be phased out next season, it’s still a fascinating situation to look at the 25/26 statistics.

At the time of writing, SportsBoom identified 11 gambling-related front-of-shirt sponsors across Premier League clubs for the 2025/26 season.

Of those 11:

5 appear on the UK Gambling Commission register
6 did not appear on the register at the time of writing

The licensed group includes brands such as:

• Betano
• Bally’s
• Boylesports
• NET88
• Hollywoodbets

The unlicensed group includes:

• Stake.com
• Debet
• Sbotop
• BJ88
•  W88
• 96.com

Some of these deals were signed while operators held UKGC licences or had White Label agreements in place. Some of these operators also target international markets rather than British consumers directly.

But that raises an uncomfortable question. If a gambling operator loses access to the UK regulated market, should it still be allowed to maintain commercial sponsorship visibility across one of Britain’s biggest sporting exports?

For me, it feels bizarre that a company can disappear from the UK regulatory system while still appearing across Premier League shirts, LED banners and global football broadcasts.

As it stands, these shirt sponsorships must be replaced by the beginning of the 2026/27 season. However, shirt sleeve, and banner ads may be lawful only where the operator is not accessible to GB consumers and the club has done due diligence.^[4]These rules create an unusual contradiction:

• Licensed UK-facing operators face increasing restrictions
• Offshore-facing brands can still maintain enormous visibility through football partnerships

The Premier League Isn’t Just A British Product Anymore

Part of the difficulty here is that the Premier League no longer operates purely as a domestic competition. It is one of the largest entertainment, and betting, exports on the planet.

Matches are broadcast across Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas simultaneously. The audience is global, and increasingly, so are the sponsorship deals attached to it.

While these betting brands might not be targeting British bettors directly, they are visible on UK-specific coverage, such as the BBC. With virtual advertising^[5] (like LED banners) banner ads can be tailored incredibly easily, to suit global audiences - it’s part of their appeal. Why are we still allowing offshore betting sites without proper licensing to advertise to British consumers?

Methodology

LED Banner Time - first 10 minutes

0-30 Official Premier League App Banner
30 - 1:00 Kaiyun (No Licence)
1:00 - 1:30 Dream League Soccer
1:30 - 2:00 Net88 (Betting)
2:00 - 2:30 SunExpress Airlines
2:30 - 3:00 Betway (Betting)
3:00 - 3:30 - Red Bull
3:30 - 4:00 - NOCO
4:00 - 4:30 - 8XBet (No Licence)
4:30 - 5:00 - NOCO
5:00 - 5:30 - Kaiyun (No Licence)
5:40 - 6:00 - SkySports 
6:00 - 6:30 - Net88 (Betting)
6:30 - 7:00 - Macron
7:00 - 7:30 - NOCO
7:30 - 8:00 - Net88 (Betting)
8:00 - 8:30 - eToro
8:30 - 9:00 - Kaiyun (No Licence)
9:00 - 9:30 - Red Bull
9:30 - 10:00 (Net88) Betting

2 mins or 20% unlicensed betting brands being advertised
2.5 mins or 25% licensed betting brands being advertised
4.5 mins or 45% all betting brands being advertised
5.5 mins or 55% not betting brands

Overall Match Highlights

10 Non Betting Banners (62.5%)
6 Betting Banners (37.5%)
2 Betting Banners with No UKGC Licence (12.5%)