A University of Bristol study counted 15,571 gambling messages during the opening weekend of the 2026/27 Premier League season, the first played under a voluntary ban on front-of-shirt betting sponsorship. Exposure fell 10.5%. Raffaello Rossi, who led the project, said it cannot be presented as a success for self-regulation. The report goes to the UK parliament on Wednesday.
Broadcast exposure
Researchers watched every Premier League match broadcast live in the UK between 21 and 24 August, plus 15 hours of Sky Sports News and 15 hours of TalkSport. At least one gambling message was on screen for 5 hours 16 minutes of live coverage, close to a fifth of airtime. Perimeter boards around the pitch carried 72% of all messages logged during live matches. Sleeve and training kit logos appeared more than three times as often as in previous years, because the ban reaches only the front of the shirt. Per game, English top-flight broadcasts showed more of these messages than comparable broadcasts in Germany, Canada and the US.
Digital reach
More than 1,000 paid ads on Facebook and Instagram produced an estimated reach of 153.2 million UK accounts, with the 18-24 audience taking more than 10% of it. Researchers say 93% of the content marketing they found was not clearly labelled as advertising.
Peter Shilton, the former England goalkeeper and a backer of the project, called the findings 'deeply troubling', saying that kind of visibility makes betting normal for fans and that advertising aimed near young people needs tighter limits. Iain Duncan Smith, co-chair of the parliamentary group on gambling reform, said the voluntary approach to football advertising is not working.
