Entain Renews Push for Immediate Unlicensed Sponsor Ban

Val D · 20 September 2026

If you’ve wondered why some Premier League shirts carry unfamiliar betting logos you won’t find on any UK-licensed casino comparison list, Entain wants that mismatch fixed sooner rather than later. The Ladbrokes and Coral owner has gone back to the government with a fresh, sharper version of its long-running demand to stop unlicensed operators sponsoring British sport, and this time it has brought numbers.

What’s been released

Entain urged the government to “close the loophole without delay” in response to a Department for Culture, Media and Sport consultation on the matter
.
That second consultation ran from 15 July to 9 September, following an initial review in February
. The complaint is about timing as much as principle:
Entain warned the current timeline, which would enforce the ban by August 2027, was not timely enough, allowing unlicensed operators to sponsor Premier League clubs for another full season
.

What’s changed

The headline figure driving this second push is club-level exposure.
Entain’s own analysis found 11 of the Premier League’s 20 clubs currently hold sponsorship or advertising arrangements with operators that do not hold a UK gambling licence, higher than the eight the government previously estimated
. Named examples span the top flight:
Everton and Stake.com, Fulham and SBOTOP, Chelsea and 8XBet, as well as Tottenham Hotspur and VSBet
, with
Sunderland entering a new deal with Curaçao-based Shuffle last week
despite the consultation already being underway.

Entain chief executive Stella David didn’t mince her words, arguing that
clubs signing new unlicensed sponsorship deals “knew the risks” given the government’s plans, first signalled in February
. The company also pointed to the scale of the wider problem, citing
data from H2 Gambling Capital that warned black market stakes in the UK are expected to nearly double from £17 billion in 2025 to over £33 billion by 2028
.

Crucially for anyone weighing up where to actually play, Entain isn’t only targeting shirt logos and pitch-side boards. It
has also called for the ban to cover online and digital advertising
, arguing that
the government’s own consultation shows that 22% of consumers who use unlicensed operators first encountered them through social media or social-media advertising, compared with 13% through sponsorship
.

Where it fits

This isn’t Entain’s first attempt to force the issue. Earlier in the year it
wrote directly to Richard Masters, the Premier League’s Chief Executive, urging an immediate, voluntary ban on sponsorship and advertising by all unlicensed operators, beginning with LED perimeter boards, ahead of the 2026/27 season
. That plea went largely unheeded by the clubs named above, which is partly why the tone has hardened this time round. The government has already moved on the broader problem in principle:
the Department for Culture, Media and Sport established the Illegal Gambling Taskforce in January 2026 to coordinate tech companies, advertisers, social media platforms, and payment providers
.

For UK players, the practical relevance sits away from the pitch and closer to the app store. Every licensed operator you’ll find reviewed on this site, from the long-established high-street names to newer digital-first brands, operates under UKGC oversight covering game fairness, safer-gambling tools and player fund protection, none of which apply to the offshore brands currently appearing on some Premier League sleeves. Whether the government moves its 2027 deadline forward remains to be seen, but the direction of travel, and the industry pressure behind it, is unlikely to ease off before then.

Entain Renews Push for Immediate Unlicensed Sponsor Ban

What’s been released

What’s changed

Where it fits

Sources

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