Government urged to protect football fans in the wake of continued failures by gambling industry

The gambling industry’s tokenistic approach to self-regulation has exposed the normalisation of gambling in football, prompting researchers and policymakers to call for more stringent regulations. The recommendations, which emphasise the need to protect children as well as adults, follow the third investigation of its kind into Premier League marketing patterns.

For the third year in a row, the University of Bristol study examined live match coverage (29 hours), Sky Sports News coverage (16 hours), and TalkSport radio broadcasts (11.5 hours) during the opening weekend of the Premier League in August 2025. It included an analysis of live match reports and gambling advertising posted on social media platforms. The results were compared with the two previous years’ studies, which collected data from the same period in 2023 and 2024.

Key findings

  • In August 2025, 27,440 gambling messages were counted across the four channels during a single weekend – a slight fall from 29,415 in 2024, but still far above the 10,999 messages recorded in 2023.
  • Examining 29 hours of live football broadcasts, researchers observed 21,815 gambling messages on hoardings, stadium structure, and football shirts – three times more than in 2023 – equating 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.
  • Social media gambling ads generated over 34 million views. This is a notable increase from last year’s 24 million and highlights the reach of gambling operators via this method.
  • Out of 280 content marketing ads sent by major gambling brands, 70% were not clearly identifiable as advertising, therefore breaching advertising regulations.
  • 13,262 of all gambling messages – representing 60% of the total – were recorded during the industry’s ‘whistle to whistle’ ban, up from around 40% in 2024.

The complete findings are available in the report, ‘Gambling Marketing and The Premier League: Continued saturation and failed self-regulation’.

Ineffective measures

The findings also indicated that some recently introduced regulatory measures had little to no impact. As noted in the Key Findings above, during match play more than 13,000 gambling messages were detected, highlighting the ineffectiveness of the gambling industry’s ‘whistle-to-whistle’ ban, supposedly designed to keep gambling marketing in check. Nor did the newly introduced voluntary Code of Conduct reduce gambling marketing volume, which has remained persistently high since the first study in 2023.

Only 9.6% of gambling messages during live broadcasts appeared on the front of shirts, suggesting that the proposed 2026 front-of-shirt ban will not substantially reduce the overall volume of gambling marketing during live matches.

The research also revealed how gambling operators are exploiting social media to reach vast audiences, including children, by using content marketing which is not easily identifiable as gambling advertising – according to the researchers, 70% of the content marketing posts collected were not clearly identifiable as ads, breaching key advertising regulations.

A clear case for tighter controls

Lead author Dr Raffaello Rossi said: “Despite having had years to put in place effective measures to protect consumers, the gambling industry continues to saturate people with harmful messages, prioritising profit over safety, suggesting that self-regulation is more tokenistic than it is a genuine attempt to deliver change.”

Dr Rossi’s team has called on the UK government to intervene with tighter gambling marketing legislation that includes: a comprehensive ‘whistle to whistle’ ban covering all forms of gambling marketing during sporting events, including commercials, shirt sponsorship, pitch side hoardings, and associated media like social media and radio; a centralised mandate for responsible gambling messaging; a complete ban on gambling content marketing that breaches advertising regulations and appeals to children, thus ensuring better protection for vulnerable audiences.

Next steps

Study investigators have since reported more than 100 offending social media ads by major gambling brands that they identified in this project to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for investigation.

Dr Rossi added: “It’s more than a failure of policy – it’s a failure to protect the public and the problem has been allowed to proliferate unchecked. We must stop relying on ineffective self-regulation, which appears designed to fail, and use existing legislation to restrict gambling marketing like most of our European counterparts. The Secretary of State has all the legal authority to act on this now.”

Investigators: