The Independent Football Regulator (IFR), the new statutory regulator of English men’s football, should stop clubs accepting illegal gambling sponsorship, according to Entain plc, the global sports betting and gaming group and owner of Ladbrokes and Coral.

The call was made today in response to the IFR’s Second Licensing Consultation (CP 2/26), in which the IFR is seeking views on a new club licensing regime for the top five tiers of English men’s football.

The IFR’s draft already prohibits English football clubs from accepting income “connected to serious criminal conduct”. Entain is asking the regulator to confirm, in a single line of guidance, that the rule covers the unlicensed gambling operators currently sponsoring six Premier League clubs – operators that commit a criminal offence under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005 every time they accept a bet from a British consumer.

Stella David, Chief Executive of Entain plc, said: “Premier League clubs are being sponsored by criminal gambling firms. The Independent Football Regulator can stop this tomorrow by simply acknowledging that unlicensed gambling companies targeting UK customers through English football are breaking the law – plain and simple.

The regulator does not need any new powers, new legislation, or even a new rule to make this happen. In fact, it has already drafted one. We are asking the regulator to define and apply it before the next season begins. The IFR was created to fix English football’s governance failures. This is one of them.”

The scale of the unlicensed market is significant and growing. Research by Frontier Economics, commissioned by the Betting and Gaming Council, found that 1.5 million Britons stake £4.3 billion a year on unlicensed sites, which already account for 9 per cent of the total UK gambling market, according to analysis by Yield Sec. One in five 18-to-24-year-olds has used illegal channels.

An estimated 420,000 British schoolchildren are gambling on the black market, routed there through social media, VPNs and crypto wallets. The Gambling Commission has found that 67 per cent of GamStop users (people who have actively excluded themselves from licensed gambling) report being targeted by black market advertising. Unlicensed operators conduct no affordability checks, offer no self-exclusion tools, and answer to no regulator.

Football is one of the black market’s most effective acquisition channels. Research by WARC, commissioned by the Betting and Gaming Council, projects that unlicensed gambling sponsorship will account for more than half of all UK sports sponsorship spend by October 2027, with unregulated firms set to triple their spend on 2019/2020 levels.

Yield Sec analysis found that 92 per cent of online betting content in certain social media categories directs users to unlicensed sites. A 2024 audit by Deal Me Out found that 84 per cent of relevant content creators reviewed promoted unlicensed operators.

The IFR’s consultation comes ahead of a forthcoming consultation by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on banning unlicensed gambling operators from sponsoring British sports teams. Entain’s submission argues that the IFR should not wait for the DCMS process to conclude and should go further than it: the IFR has the rule in front of it now, the consultation closes on 5 May, and its remit extends beyond sponsorship to the wider governance and commercial conduct of clubs. Entain has also written to Richard Masters, Chief Executive of the Premier League, urging an immediate voluntary ban on sponsorship and advertising by unlicensed operators ahead of the 2026/27 season.