New research has revealed that gambling messages during the opening weekend of this season’s Premier League remained at extremely high levels, with more than 27,000 recorded — almost three times higher than in 2023 — leaving fans, including children, at risk.

For the third year running, researchers from the University of Bristol found that football fans were bombarded with gambling ads. This year’s investigation additionally uncovered thousands of ads that breach the rules set by the industry itself, further highlighting systemic failures and adding fresh urgency to calls for government action.

As with the previous two years, researchers analysed the prevalence of gambling marketing during the opening weekend of the Premier League across four key platforms: live match broadcasts, Sky Sports News, TalkSport radio, and social media ads.

Between August 15 and 18, a total of 27,440 gambling messages were recorded – a slight fall from 29,415 in last year, but still far above the 10,999 messages recorded in 2023. The report is available to read here: EPL Premier League Report 2025.

Gambling marketing in the UK is regulated through a mixture of self-regulation, either via the Advertising Standards Authority, or voluntary industry codes. Yet research has continuously shown that this approach fails to protect consumers from gambling-related harms.

Project lead Dr Raffaello Rossi, Senior Lecturer in Marketing and Impact Lead for Bristol Hub for Gambling Harms Research, said: “Year on year, the problem seems to get worse, despite the industry’s promises of better self-regulation. While the overall numbers remained extremely high, we found a huge rise in cases where rules are either breached or simply don’t work.

“The Premier League is now so saturated with gambling marketing that brands are fighting each other for every inch of advertising space. The evidence is now overwhelming: self-regulation has failed. Voluntary codes are protecting profits, not fans. The question now is how much more evidence the Government needs before it finally steps in to act.”

Examining almost 29 hours of live football broadcasts, researchers observed 21,815 gambling messages on hoardings, stadium structure, and football shirts – three times more than two years ago – amounting to 12.6 gambling messages per minute.

The highest number of gambling messages were found during the match between Wolverhampton and Manchester City, totalling 5,262 – an average of 22 ads per minute. Indeed, one third of the total broadcast time had at least one gambling logo present.

As with last year, the findings point to the failure of self-regulatory measures such as the gambling industry’s “whistle-to-whistle” ban. Introduced in 2019, as an attempt to reduce gambling marketing during football, the policy applies only to television commercials shown from five minutes before kick-off until five minutes after the final whistle, before 9pm.

Yet the reality is that gambling logos still dominate the screen throughout live play. This year’s study revealed that that the ban is vastly ineffective, with over 13,262 gambling messages during the restricted time – a 32% increase from the 10,027 recorded last year.

Echoing last year’s critique, the report authors say this adds further evidence that the proposed ban is largely tokenistic and unlikely to significantly reduce exposure to gambling advertising.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, Chair of the Gambling Reform APPG, said: “This level of gambling advertising during the Premier League’s first weekend is frankly astonishing. The industry claimed it was taking steps to self-regulate and reduce advertising but yet again they have not kept to their word. The whistle-to-whistle ban is far too limited and is ineffective. The commitment to reduce front of shirt logos is a tokenistic gesture while the regulators seem incapable of having any impact or properly protecting consumers.

“Time and again we see gambling companies fail in their commitments to self-regulate and the regulators are completely out of step with a fast-evolving industry. The number of gambling adverts must be vastly reduced to stop the proliferation of harms and protect children.”