Who are the betting firms sponsoring your team?
Football and gambling are so closely linked that the influence of betting has become an integral part of the matchday experience.
It’s in play everywhere – from shirt sponsors and billboards to teams partnering with gambling companies to flap around the stadium.
Activists are hoping that forthcoming government changes to gambling legislation will break that relationship – but it doesn’t look like it.
The Premier League is expected to be able to vote to ban gambling companies from the front of shirts instead, but allow other forms of advertising.
In the current 2022/23 season, more Premier League shirts are sponsored by gambling companies than any other company – eight out of 20.
As the premier league of English football has grown to become Britain’s biggest sporting export, companies have become aware of their global advertising power.
Perhaps no more so than betting companies who have realized that Premier League sponsorship opens up markets such as Asia and China in particular, despite the fact that gambling is illegal there.
The white label system
You might recognize them as sponsors of your team – Dafabet in Bournemouth, Stake.com in Everton or W88 in Fulham.
There is also SBOTOP at Leeds United, Fun88 at Newcastle United and Sportsbet.io at Southampton among the Premier League gambling companies.
But chances are you probably don’t know many people who actually bet with them – because they’re not set up exclusively for UK players.
Visit their websites and you will see that they look quite similar – probably because they are all operated by the same company, TGP Europe, with the exception of Dafabet.
TGP Europe holds the license and leases rights to these gambling companies in what is known as a white label agreement.
Matt Zarb-cousin is a recovered gambling addict who now leads the campaign group Clean Up Gambling and wants more transparency in the industry.
“You need a license to advertise in a UK market and that’s a way around that,” he tells the BBC.
“They can lock themselves into a different type of license so essentially these companies are paying rent which then gives them the ability to market in the UK and access the Premier League with its global appeal.”
Mr Zarb-Cousin says this means that since they don’t have to apply for a full license, they can piggyback the operator’s license and don’t have to meet the criteria set by the Gambling Commission that those who want to get their own license have to do.
“And that means they can access Asian markets where online gambling and gambling advertising are illegal. People then become aware of these brands and search for them after seeing them on TV,” he adds.
A Gambling Commission spokesman told the BBC: “White label agreements and sports sponsorship are being considered as part of the government’s review of the 2005 Gambling Act.
“We understand that compliance responsibility rests with the licensee and cannot be delegated to any other party. Failure to maintain appropriate controls over third parties may result in regulatory action, including suspension or loss of operating license.”
Why Asian Markets?
dr Jonathan Sullivan, a China specialist at the University of Nottingham, explains that gambling has been illegal in the country since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
“The Chinese Communist Party saw it as a decadent capitalist practice with no social value that would disempower workers,” he told the BBC.
But, according to Dr. Sullivan said China has become a “socialist market economy with Chinese characteristics” and a number of loopholes have been opened, including casinos in the Macou area (dubbed the Las Vegas of Asia) and a state lottery.
“Sports betting is still illegal in the PRC, which is why so many offshore betting companies have sprung up to target Chinese wannabe gamblers – because the appetite is big,” he adds.
“Sports betting and the English Premier League in particular are very popular.”
The total global audience for the Premier League is estimated at billions – with China emerging as the world’s largest viewership country.
dr Sullivan notes that games in China are shown for free on terrestrial TV, with plenty of coverage and interest – not to mention millions of eyes noticing shirt sponsors, some with Chinese characters, and billboards with gambling logos.
“You can’t go to the betting shop to bet on a game because it’s illegal, so you need an online operator that will facilitate your engagement,” he says.
“Although technically illegal and therefore heavily censored, Chinese people can access the sites via a virtual private network (VPN).
“These companies can’t be based in China, so have an offshore base in the Philippines – they need to get through to potential Chinese consumers, and gambling advertising is illegal, so they need a workaround, and what better way than to advertise directly.” make jerseys that the teams wear when they play?”
Everything about the money
Aston Villa announced in January that they had agreed a deal with Malaysian online casino BK8 as their new shirt sponsor for the 23-24 season, which was met with backlash from fans.
The company had previously signed a sponsorship deal with Norwich City in 2021, which was quickly canceled after BK8’s sexually explicit online ads were unearthed.
However, Aston Villa’s supporters advisory group met with the board but announced the sponsorship deal would go ahead as the club needed the money.
In a statement, they said: “The commercial reality is that such sponsors offer clubs twice as much as non-gaming companies for teams outside the top 6.”
Currently, none of the traditional ‘Big Six’ Premier League teams Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool or Tottenham Hotspur have a betting shirt sponsor.
However, all of them have betting partners – which means Asian viewers still see gambling-sponsored billboards in stadiums.
Consumer data company Statista estimates that shirt sponsorships in the Premier League totaled almost £350m in the 19/20 season.
Zarb-Cousin says seeing these gambling companies as lucrative cash cows is “a very short-sighted way of looking at all of this.”
“The Premier League is used to facilitate illegal gambling in jurisdictions where gambling is illegal – that’s a problem for their global brand,” he says.
“It’s affecting kids here too because they see the word ‘bet’ on the front of shirts and it doesn’t matter if this site is accessible to UK customers or not – they still create a connection in the minds of youngsters People people that football is associated with betting.”
Gambling companies are recommended to donate 0.1% of the money they make in the UK after paying out winnings to Gamble Aware, a charity that provides problem gamblers with addiction help and resources for the NHS.
The problem gambling rate, as determined by the Gambling Commission, remains stable at 0.3% of gamblers, but participation, both online and in person, continues to increase each year.
Gamble Aware publishes its donation list on its website each year and recently released figures for April 2021 through March 2022.
TGP Europe, which runs the sites for 12Bet, 8XBet, BK8, Fun88, SBOT0P, Stake and Sportsbetio.uk, is listed as the £2,000 donor.
In comparison, West Ham shirt sponsors Betway donated £60,200 and Middlesbrough FC shirt sponsor Unibet donated £92,000.
Bet365’s parent company, which sponsors champions club Stoke City’s shirt and stadium, donated £2.69million over the same period.
Zarb-Cousin says TGP Europe’s figures are “disappointing” as it means no money is being invested to help gambling addicts in the UK.
The BBC has reached out to TGP Europe for comment on the size of their donation but they declined to comment.
A Premier League spokesman told the BBC: “Gambling affiliates of Premier League clubs are regulated and licensed by the Gambling Commission and are required to comply with the rules of the Advertising Standards Authority.”