Bristol study finds 15,571 gambling messages in English top-flight opening weekend

Researchers at the University of Bristol counted 15,571 gambling references across television, radio and social media during the opening weekend of the 2026/27 English top-flight season. The study covered seven live matches, 15 hours of Sky Sports News, 15 hours of TalkSport and posts and advertisements from 10 major gambling brands on social media, the report said. The researchers count each visible logo or other reference to a gambling brand as a separate reference, and where several identical advertising boards were on screen at once they counted the maximum number of visible logos. The 15,571 references are therefore not 15,571 separately produced advertisements and do not indicate how many references any individual viewer saw.

Across the broadcasts of seven English top-flight matches, the researchers logged 11,205 gambling advertising references. A gambling reference was on screen for at least five hours and 16 minutes, which amounts to 19.6% of all broadcast time studied, pre-match and post-match coverage included. Electronic boards produced 6,491 references, 6.4% above the average of the three preceding years, and electronic and static boards combined accounted for roughly 72% of all references counted during the match broadcasts. Newcastle United versus Liverpool produced the highest count, 2,702, averaging more than twelve per broadcast minute, and at least one gambling reference was visible for 40.7% of that broadcast.

In 2023 the clubs of the English top flight reached an agreement that, starting with the 2026/27 season, no betting firms would be displayed on the front of match shirts. This is a voluntary arrangement made by the competition rather than a ban enshrined in British law. The University of Bristol research report found that references on the chest of the shirt dropped from an average of 1,539 to nine, and those nine came from archive footage. The overall decrease proved more modest: leaving out sponsor introductions around broadcasts, references declined 10.5%, from an average of 11,715 in the earlier studies to 10,484. Meanwhile, references on training wear and match-shirt sleeves climbed from an average of 122 to 563, a rise of 362.7%.

The 15,571 references were fewer than the 29,145 counted in 2024 and the 27,440 in 2025, yet more than the 10,999 recorded in 2023. The researchers characterise their work as snapshots of the opening matchday rather than measurements spanning entire English top-flight seasons. Sky Sports News yielded 2,637 references and TalkSport 207, and the team also found 1,522 paid and organic posts on social media. It identified 1,023 paid advertisements on Facebook and Instagram, for which Meta reported a combined British reach of 153.2 million, with 16.6 million reach records tied to accounts of people aged 18 to 24. Since users may see several advertisements, that figure does not correspond to the same number of unique individuals. Among the organic content marketing studied, 93% was not clearly identifiable as advertising, the report states.

Lead researcher Raffaello Rossi said the gambling sponsorship ban had removed the logos from the front of match shirts but not gambling advertising from football. The researchers called on the British government to introduce statutory restrictions on, among other things, advertising during matches, stadium sponsorship and agreements with gambling companies that do not hold a British licence. In the Netherlands, providers of online gambling have been barred since 1 July 2025 from sponsoring sports clubs and sports locations, as set out in the Orka decision; gambling advertising can still appear on Dutch television through international match footage, as was seen during the 2026 World Cup.