New research to be presented in Parliament today has revealed gambling messages continue to saturate the opening weekend of UK football Premier League. The statistics have prompted renewed calls for tighter regulation to tackle the pervasive problem which considerably overshoots levels in other countries.

For the fourth year running, researchers from the University of Bristol found football fans were bombarded with gambling ads, recording 15,571 messages during the Premier League opening weekend. During the live matches, the rapid review showed at least one gambling message was visible for five hours and 16 minutes in total, meaning almost one fifth of the entire broadcast time featured gambling marketing.

The findings also uncovered that although the new front-of-shirt restriction virtually eliminated gambling logos from the front of matchday shirts, the analysis estimates this contributed to a reduction of just 10.5% during live matches.

Furthermore, gambling branding on shirt sleeves and training kits jumped more than threefold – a 362% increase from previous years. In addition, pitchside advertising continued to dominate, accounting for 72% of all messages during live matches.

Project lead Dr Raffaello Rossi, Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bristol Business School and Co-Director of Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research, said: “The findings raise serious questions about the effectiveness of the Premier League’s front of shirt restriction and football’s voluntary Sponsorship Code of Conduct. The gambling and football industries have repeatedly promised to get a grip on the massive volume of gambling marketing surrounding the Premier League. Yet three years after new restrictions were promised and our first study exposed the scale of the problem, we still recorded an absolute deluge of marketing messages.

“This cannot be presented as a success for self-regulation. Premier League broadcasts contained more gambling messages per game than every other jurisdiction in our comparison, including Germany, Canada and the United States. Gambling marketing remains an unavoidable part of watching Premier League football and the issue needs to be tackled more effectively.”

The researchers analysed every Premier League match broadcast live in the UK during the opening weekend (on August 21 – August 24) alongside 15 hours of Sky Sports News TV and 15 hours of TalkSport radio broadcasts. Organic and paid social media advertising by ten major gambling brands with the largest social media followings were also examined.

The results recorded 15,571 gambling messages in total, lower than 2024 findings but still 41.57% more than the 10,999 recorded in 2023, when new restrictions were anticipated. This included 2,637 messages on Sky Sports News and 207 on TalkSport, where listeners were found to hear at least one gambling advert in every commercial break.

During the live coverage fans were shown to encounter 11,205 messages across seven matches, with gambling marketing visible during almost 20% of broadcast time. The greatest exposure occurred during the Newcastle United against Liverpool match, which contained 2,702 gambling messages. This was an average of more than 12 messages per minute, with gambling marketing visible during almost 41% of the broadcast.

Dr Rossi added: “The decline from last year also cannot be explained by the front of shirt restriction. Much of the reduction resulted from a sharp fall in sponsorship lead ins, which were not targeted by any of the regulatory measures examined.

“The front of shirt ban was effective in removing gambling logos from shirt fronts, but it did not remove them from football. Branding remained highly visible on pitchside hoardings and around stadiums, while some appears simply to have shifted to shirt sleeves and training kits. Our analysis shows that the season’s most anticipated reform delivered little meaningful change in overall exposure to gambling ads.”

The research also uncovered the huge scale of gambling advertising on social media.

The 1,023 paid adverts which researchers identified on Facebook and Instagram combined estimated UK reach of 153.2 million accounts. 18 to 24-year-olds accounted for 16.6 million instances of this reach, more than 10% of the total. More than three-quarters of this younger adult reach was also attributed to men.

Dr Rossi explained: “The formal industry Code requires paid digital advertising to target people aged 25 and over unless reliable age gating is demonstrated, but names no exempt platforms. Instead, exemptions appear on a separate, undated BGC webpage that was quietly changed after parliamentary scrutiny to add Instagram, without announcement, a change log or any supporting evidence.

“A system in which the industry can rewrite its own safeguards whenever difficult questions are asked, without notice, supporting evidence or independent oversight, is neither transparent nor rigorous. That is especially concerning when accounts aged 18 to 24 represented 16.6 million instances of reach.”

The report revealed that most (93%) of the gambling content marketing was not clearly identifiable as advertising and unlicensed brands still gained Premier League exposure. Gambling marketing in the UK is regulated through a mixture of self-regulation, either via the Advertising Standards Authority, or voluntary industry codes.

The report’s international comparison also shows that gambling marketing is considerably more prominent in UK football than in comparable sports coverage overseas. Across the four-year UK sample, Premier League broadcasts contained an average of 2,449 messages per game compared with 1,677 during German Bundesliga coverage, 483 during National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Hockey League (NHL) coverage in the United States and 505 in the same leagues in Canada.

Dr Rossi will present the findings today at the All-Party Parlimaentary Group (APPG) for Gambling Reform (APPG) in a session considering where the current regulatory approach is falling short and what further action Government needs to take to reduce exposure and prevent gambling-related harms.

Former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton CBE and his wife Steph, longstanding patrons of this research project, said: “Having experienced first hand the harm gambling can cause to individuals and families, we find these figures deeply concerning. That more than 15,000 messages were recorded in one opening weekend shows how deeply gambling remains woven into English football. We are pleased that removing gambling logos from the front of shirts has reduced this form of exposure and that the Premier League agreed to allow this to happen.

“When gambling is so visible throughout the game, it risks making betting feel like a normal part of being a football fan or player. We are not at all anti-gambling but believe more needs to be done to reduce the amount of gambling advertising especially around the young.”

Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, Co-Chair of the APPG for Gambling Reform, said: “These findings are further evidence that the voluntary approach to gambling advertising in football is failing. After repeated promises of reform, fans continue to be exposed to thousands of gambling messages during Premier League coverage. 

“The front-of-shirt restriction has barely scratched the surface of the issue. We cannot continue to rely on the gambling and football industries to regulate themselves. That is why the APPG on Gambling Reform is calling on the Government for more stringent regulation of gambling advertising and to close the loopholes in the current system.”