Exclusive: Half of Premier League teams breaching gambling rules aimed at protecting children
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Exclusive: Half of Premier League teams breaching gambling rules aimed at protecting children
10 Premier League football clubs are advertising gambling logos on web pages aimed at under-18s - potentially breaching the league's code of conduct on sponsorship.
In a joint investigation by The Pitch Inspection and The Guardian, we discovered that 50% of Premier League football clubs are potentially violating the voluntary code of conduct on gambling sponsorship aimed at protecting children.
Top flight clubs instead volunteered to forego front-of-shirt betting logos from 2026 and also signed up to a new code of conduct for sponsorship, drawn up with the support of the Betting & Gaming Council (BGC), a gambling industry lobby group.
The move was designed to show that both clubs and gambling firms were acting responsibly, amid concerns about the degree to which football promotes betting and the potential impact on young and vulnerable people.
But research conducted by The Pitch Inspection has found at least 10 of the 20 Premier League clubs do not appear to be following their own rules.
The offending clubs were Aston Villa. Brentford, Chelsea, Everton, Ipswich Town, Leicester City, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest and Wolves.
The Majority of Premier League clubs are not abiding by the rules
Source: The Premier League
According to the new code, published in July, clubs must ensure that:
“..no gambling sponsor logos or other promotional materials relating to gambling sponsorship as part of Gambling Related Agreements are included on any materials or section of the website which have been designed to be viewed or used specifically by Children.”
According to analysis by the Guardian and Pitch Inspection, betting logos appear on club shop pages aimed at children, under-18 football content and even pages dedicated to “junior” fan forums and international academy’s.
Multiple clubs, including Liverpool, Leicester City, Newcastle United and Chelsea, display betting sponsors’ logos on pages dedicated to their under 18 teams.
The webpage for Liverpool’s “international Academy”, which according to the club encourages “young Reds across five continents how to play the Liverpool way” includes a Ladbrokes logo at the foot of the page - anyone who clicks on the link is greeted with an offer of a free £20 bet.
Source: (above) Liverpool International Academy page. The foot of the page included a Ladbrokes logo and link to the site. 06/09/24. (below) Video of Liverpool’s U18 fixtures webpage which includes a link to the Ladbrokes website. 24/09/24
Two teams, namely, Brentford and Wolverhampton Wanderers, include the logos of their betting sponsors at the foot of kids’ sections of their online club shop - Anyone visiting the kids section of the Wolves club shop can click straight through to its sponsor Debet, which offers casino games and betting on “virtual” computer-generated sports.
Pages on the Chelsea FC website that list fixtures for the under-18 men’s team, as well as a page displaying highlights from their matches feature active links to the website of their sponsor Betway.
In September 2022, Betway was fined more than £400,000 after its logo was found on a page of the West Ham website where young fans were invited to coloud in a teddy bear.
Nottingham Forest even display branding and links to their gambling sponsor, Kaiyun Sports, on a section of their website dedicate to the girls academy, a programme for girls in the under-10 to under-16 age group.
On Everton’s website, a page outlining the latest news about the clubs “junior fans’ forum” contains an active link to the company’s sponsor Stake.com.
Newly-promoted Ipswich Town include a link to 8xbet on a page dedicated to junior experiences and mascots. (see vide below).
All of the logos and links reviewed by The Guardian and The Pitch Inspection appeared on the footer section of club websites, which are reproduced at the bottom of every page on the site with the exception of Leicester City who also include the BC Game logo at the top of each page too - including to the teams U18 webpage.
Newcastle United’s academy page and U18 page includes links to not one, not two, but three gambling sponsors - Sportsbet.io, Bet MGM and Fun88. (see video below).
However, not all Premier League teams have fallen foul of the rules. A page listing Manchester United’s men’s first team features a Betfred link and logo but pages for its under-18s and academy pages do not include the Betfred logo.
The Gambling Industry’s growing influence over the game
Last month, The Pitch Inspection published ‘High Stakes - The gambling industry's choke hold on global football’. A deep dive in to football's obsession with gambling partnerships and the impact it is having on football fans.
We discovered:
During matches gambling advertisement occurs at an average of 2.8 times per broadcast minute.
The 2024/2025 EPL season will see an increase to 11 teams with gambling companies as their main front of shirt sponsor.
All twenty of the EPL teams will go into the 2024 / 2025 season linked with sponsorships or partnerships with betting companies.
Table of current Premier League gambling sponsorship deals as of September 2024
You can read The Guardian’s full report here - including comments from the former ITV commentator Clive Tyldesley, the former Conservative leader and co-chair of the parliamentary group reviewing gambling harms Iain Duncan Smith and Charles Ritchie from the campaign group Gambling with Lives.
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