Gambling adverts nearly trebled during the opening weekend of the Premier League season ahead of an upcoming ban on betting sponsorships on team shirts.
The spike in the number of betting messages appearing across TV, radio and social media coverage of the fixtures is in sharp contrast to a crackdown on gambling’s influence on football.
Bookies have faced mounting pressure in recent years to reduce their presence around football fixtures amid fears over the potential negative effect on children and young people.
Betting companies have been a long-standing feature of the Premier League, with 10 out of the 20 clubs featuring a gambling group on their shirts this season.
However, clubs last year struck a voluntary deal to remove gambling logos from the front of players’ shirts on match days by the end of next season.
Despite the looming crackdown, betting adverts are still proliferating, researchers say.
Almost 30,000 gambling adverts and logos were counted across TV, radio, social media and live coverage compared with 10,999 over the same period last year.
During a live broadcast of West Ham’s match against Aston Villa on Aug 17, a total of 6,491 gambling messages were shown – the equivalent of about 30 messages every minute.
The researchers from the University of Bristol said some ads on social media during the period in question had also been viewed 24m times.
They found that around three quarters were not easily identifiable as adverts and that they had reported more than 100 to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for investigation.
Gambling companies submitted to a voluntary ban on showing ads from five minutes before the match until five minutes after it ends, under so-called “whistle to whistle” restrictions in 2019.
However, campaign groups argued the prevalence of messages counted by researchers showed those rules were failing. They claimed that because the “whistle to whistle” ban only applies to TV commercials during ad breaks, the policy was ineffective.
A spokesman for campaign group the Big Step, which campaigns to end gambling advertising in football, said: “For every day the Government lets this continue they too are complicit in the harm to so many young fans who just want to watch the game, not be lured into addiction. It must stop.”
Betting on football has exploded in popularity with the advent of online betting.
Gambling firms’ winnings from football bets topped £1.1bn in 2023, according to Gambling Commission data. Profits from horse betting were second at £734m.
The Commons culture, media and sport committee last year called for a clampdown, with its chairman, Dame Caroline Dinenage, arguing that “more should be done” to shield children from “what often seems like a bombardment of advertising” in football and other sports.
This was followed by the introduction of a new code of conduct for gambling firms around sporting events introduced this summer.
A spokesman for the Betting & Gaming Council, which represents gambling companies, said it had written to social media businesses inviting them to work more closely with the industry to boost protections.
“This research fundamentally misunderstands both advertising, and the way in which it is strictly regulated, while making a series of statements which are either misleading or incorrect,” it said.
“Betting advertising and sponsorship must comply with strict guidelines and safer gambling tools and signposts to help for those concerned about their betting, are regularly and prominently displayed.
“BGC members already commit 20pc of TV, radio and digital advertising to safer gambling messaging.”
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