The 2024/25 football season is almost upon us, with the 92 teams that make up the top four tiers of English football gearing up for the new campaign.
All of them will walk out for their first game wearing a new kit. And in the Premier League, that will see the number of clubs with a front-of-shirt sponsor from the gambling industry reach double figures for the first time – with the potential yet for more before the big kick off.
| Club | Sponsor |
|---|---|
| Aston Villa | Betano |
| Brentford | Hollywoodbets |
| Crystal Palace | NET88 |
| Everton | Stake.com |
| Fulham | SBOTOP |
| Leicester City | BC.GAME |
| Nottingham Forest | Kaiyun Sports |
| Southampton | Rollbit |
| West Ham United | Betway |
| Wolves | DEBET |
At the time of writing, neither Chelsea or Bournemouth had penned a shirt sponsorship deal – it’s not impossible then that by the time the season gets underway, as many as 12 of the 20 Premier League clubs will be promoting gambling to their all-ages fanbase.
That would represent a new record high figure – just months after Premier League clubs announced unilaterally to ban gambling firms as sponsors by the summer of 2026.
Roll With It
The latest Premier League club to climb aboard the gambling bandwagon is newly-promoted Southampton.
The Saints will kick off the new season in their traditional red-and-white stripes, but this time their playing shirt will feature with the logo of crypto casino operator Rollbit.
New threads 🧵
— Southampton FC (@SouthamptonFC) July 16, 2024
The firm, which unusually for Premier League shirt sponsors actually has a UK presence, offers casino games and welcomes cryptocurrency as their main payment method. Rollbit also sponsors Napoli and esports outfit FaZe Clan.
Just weeks shy of the new campaign, Chelsea still don’t have a front-of-shirt sponsor. They launched their new kit, a plain blue shirt from Nike, earlier in July, with a sizable gap where a sponsor’s logo might go. At the time of writing, there’s still no movement on which brand will fill the void.
Bournemouth’s deal with Dafabet has come to an end, so they too are seeking a new sponsor for the front of their shirts. But, otherwise, the remaining 18 Premier League clubs have confirmed their sponsors for the 2024/25 campaign – ten of them opting for a gambling industry operator as they seek to cash in before the voluntary ban takes hold.
The Last Dance
In April of this year, Aston Villa revealed that their deal with betting firm BK8 had come to an end, replacing them with – you guessed it – a gambling operator by the name of Betano.
Brentford will continue in their partnership with Hollywoodbets, the South African firm with a presence in markets as diverse as the United Kingdom and Mozambique. They’ve been working together since the 2021/22 campaign.
Crystal Palace have parked car firm Cinch and will instead have the mysterious Net88 on the front of their shirt. They still don’t have a UK-facing website – the ‘coming soon’ banner is displayed on their homepage, while corporate information about the brand is also thin on the ground.
Welcome to Palace, @net88eng ❤️💙
NET88 will feature as the men’s official front-of-shirt sponsor for the 2024/25 season.
— Crystal Palace F.C. (@CPFC) June 12, 2024
Everton and Fulham have retained their respective sponsors from last season – Stake.com and SBOTOP, while promoted Leicester City have penned a deal with the curiously-named BC.GAME, which is – you know how this works by now – a crypto casino brand.
Nottingham Forest have continued their bizarre partnership with Kaiyun Sports. Type either of Kaiyun’s URLs into your browser – kaiyun.com and kaiyun.co.uk – and you’ll be met with a warning message from Microsoft, or a blank page entirely.
That’s despite the Forest shirt literally having kaiyun.com on it; confirming that gambling sponsors don’t even need a UK presence – or operating licence – to advertise to millions of people via live TV broadcasts all over the globe.
West Ham’s long-standing relationship with Betway remains, while Wolves have ditched AstroPay in favour of DEBET, the Vietnamese white label brand operating under the auspices of an Isle of Man headquarters without a working UK website. Go figure….
All of which comes barely a year after the Premier League made a huge song and dance about the voluntary ban its clubs had agreed to uphold in time for the 2026/27 season.
“Premier League clubs have today collectively agreed to withdraw gambling sponsorship from the front of clubs’ matchday shirts, becoming the first sports league in the UK to take such a measure voluntarily in order to reduce gambling advertising,” they revealed in 2023.
But there’s still time for EPL clubs to cash in with new gambling partners. Is there any other industry in the world that allows direct advertising from companies that don’t even have a product or service to offer in the host country?