Bookmakers kicked out of the Premier League – this is how England’s football will change from 2026

Background for the ban

In April 2023, all of the Premier League’s 20 clubs agreed to voluntarily phase out betting companies as a front-of-shirt sponsor. The decision came after extensive talks between the league, clubs and the UK Department of Culture (DCMS), as part of the government’s ongoing review of gambling legislation.

The Premier League thus became the first British professional league to take such a step on its own initiative. Italy’s Serie A had already banned gambling advertising on shirts since 2019, and Spain’s La Liga introduced the same restriction ahead of the 2021/22 season.

The ban specifically applies to the front of the shirt, the commercially most valuable surface. Betting companies will continue to be seen on sleeves, training clothes, LED signs around the pitch and in digital partnerships.

Eleven clubs that lose their sponsorship deals

In the current 2025/26 season, as many as 11 out of 20 teams have a betting company on their chest. Here’s what the list looks like at the moment:

In other words, clubs such as Arsenal (Emirates), Liverpool (Standard Chartered), Manchester City (Etihad) and Brighton (American Express) are not affected.

The financial loss

The loss will be significant, especially for the smaller clubs. According to The Sponsor, the average front-of-shirt sponsorship risks losing 38 percent in market value when the gaming companies disappear.

A commercial director of the Premier League told The Sponsor: “The highest bid we’ve received from a non-betting company was less than half of what a betting partner put on the table. That shows how big the problem is.”

Gaming companies pay an average of 38 percent more than the market value to appear on the front of the shirt. It implies that replaced sponsors don’t just have to fill the gap, they have to do so in a market that is suddenly flooded with twelve teams chasing the same limited pool of brands.

Karren Brady, deputy chairman of West Ham, warned in the House of Lords that the ban could mean a reduction in total commercial income by about 20 percent for certain clubs.

And what does Norway have to do with the case?

In many ways, Norway represents the exact opposite of the Premier League’s commercial Wild West. In Norway, the state-owned Norsk Tipping and Norsk Rikstoto have a monopoly on the gaming market, and foreign gaming companies’ advertising has in principle been completely banned since 2021.

Norsk Tipping recently renewed its partnership with the Norwegian Football Association (NFF) in a new four-year agreement worth NOK 60 million, and has been football’s main sponsor since 1948. The Norwegian model is based on the idea that the money should remain in sports and society, not end up with foreign gaming operators.

At the same time, more and more Norwegian players are looking to gaming sites outside the monopoly, not least those that offer deposits and withdrawals with cryptocurrencies. Interest in crypto casinos has grown as traditional payment channels have been blocked to foreign gaming companies, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down – quite the opposite.

Unlicensed operators are banned completely

The ban is not just about visibility. Several of today’s sponsors do not have a British gaming license at all.

TGP Europe, a white label company based in the Isle of Man, lost its UK license in 2024 after an investigation found that the company had failed to comply with anti-money laundering requirements. Despite this, several Premier League clubs such as Bournemouth, Fulham, Wolverhampton, and Burnley had sponsorship deals with betting sites that were operated under TGP’s control. The Gambling Commission came out strongly and warned the clubs that they risked prosecution.

Everton’s sponsor Stake.com also lost its British license, and players like Sunderland’s W88 have never had any at all.

In February 2026, British Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy announced that the government is now consulting on a total ban on unlicensed gaming companies as sponsors.

“Fans deserve to know that the sites they use are properly regulated, with the right safety nets in place,” Nandy said.

Crypto industry ready to fill the void

As gaming companies get ready to leave the front of the kit, another industry is ready to start investing money and taking over the place on the team kits – the crypto companies.

Already in the 2024/25 season, sponsorship deals from crypto companies in the Premier League amounted to £129.7 million, an explosive increase from £13.8 million just five years earlier. 14 out of 20 clubs had commercial partnerships with crypto companies.

Kraken sponsors Tottenham, OKX backs Manchester City in a deal worth $70 million, Crypto.com is the title sponsor of the Champions League and Nottingham Forest play with Floki on the sleeve of their kits.

Analysts describe the situation as a “once in a generation buying opportunity” for the crypto companies, which can now secure the most prestigious advertising surface in world football.

But there are warning flags. Certain clubs have required crypto companies to pay sponsorship deals upfront due to the volatility of the industry. And after the FTX collapse in 2022, which, among other things, erased the naming rights to the Miami Heat’s arena, the clubs are aware that a collapsed crypto company could become a PR disaster.

A new era for football’s economy

The Premier League’s sponsorship scheme will look very different from the autumn of 2026. Gaming companies are disappearing from their chests, and crypto companies’ logos are expected to take up more space.

The question is no longer whether the gaming companies will be thrown out, that has now been decided. The question is what happens to those clubs that have built the majority of their finances on money that will soon be no more.