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Entain Asks Football Regulator to Ban Premier League Sponsorship from Unlicensed Operators

Ladbrokes and Coral owner says the new IFR already has the rule it needs to block Stake, W88, SBOTOP, bj88, and 96.com from sponsoring Everton, Sunderland, Fulham, Bournemouth, and Burnley.

Category: iGaming News - UK · By Growl Games Editorial Team · Tue May 12 2026 · Updated Thu Jul 23 2026

Entain Asks Football Regulator to Ban Premier League Sponsorship from Unlicensed Operators

Table of Contents

Summary

On May 7, 2026, Entain plc — owner of Ladbrokes, Coral, and Liverpool FC's official betting partnership — formally called on the Independent Football Regulator (IFR) to stop English football clubs from accepting sponsorship income from gambling operators that hold no UK Gambling Commission licence. The submission, made in response to the IFR's Second Licensing Consultation (CP 2/26), names five current Premier League front-of-shirt deals with unlicensed brands and argues that the regulator already has the legal basis to act without new powers, new legislation, or a new rule. The intervention sets up a regulatory showdown before the 2026/27 Premier League season kicks off in August.

The IFR Submission

Entain CEO Stella David's submission makes four specific asks. First, that the IFR confirm in guidance that income from gambling operators conducting unlicensed activity in the UK constitutes funds "connected to serious criminal conduct" — the existing prohibition in the regulator's draft Annex B, Part IV. Second, that the Annual Declaration include a mandatory board attestation requiring directors to verify the licence status of any gambling partner with which the club holds a significant commercial arrangement, with legal consequences for false attestation. Third, that the Football Club Corporate Governance Code be strengthened to require boards to treat reputational risk from commercial partnerships as a standing governance responsibility. Fourth, that the IFR publish general guidance to all licensed clubs setting out due diligence and notification duties applicable to gambling partners. David has separately written to Premier League Chief Executive Richard Masters urging an immediate voluntary ban ahead of the 2026/27 season; a February meeting request from David has not yet taken place.

Clubs in Scope

Five Premier League clubs hold current front-of-shirt deals with operators that are not licensed by the UK Gambling Commission: Everton (Stake), Sunderland (W88), Fulham (SBOTOP), Bournemouth (bj88), and Burnley (96.com). Wolverhampton Wanderers has separately been reported as carrying DE.BET branding. Until April 2024, several of these Asian-facing brands held UK licences via the Isle of Man-based TGP Europe white-label group; those arrangements have since ended, leaving the brands without a domestic licensing route while continuing to feature on Premier League shirts visible to UK consumers via televised matches and stadium signage.

The IFR was established by the Football Governance Act 2025 as the new statutory regulator of English men's football across the top five tiers, from the Premier League to the National League. Its draft Annex B, Part IV reads: "The Club must neither agree to accept nor take receipt of any funds offered or made available in the course of a business transaction, which it knows, believes or has any reason to suspect are connected to serious criminal conduct." Entain's argument rests on Section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005, under which operators not licensed in the UK commit a criminal offence each time they accept a bet from a British consumer. The submission concludes that the IFR does not need to wait for the separate Department for Culture, Media and Sport consultation on unlicensed sports sponsorship — the rule, Entain argues, is already drafted.

Market Data

The financial scale of the issue is significant. The Premier League's combined television rights are valued at approximately £12 billion, including £6.7 billion in UK rights. Independent research commissioned by the Betting and Gaming Council from Frontier Economics estimates that 1.5 million Britons stake roughly £4.3 billion a year with illegal operators, giving the black market a 9% share — up from 2% four years ago. Separate BGC-commissioned research by WARC projects that unlicensed gambling sponsorship could account for more than half of all UK sports sponsorship spend by October 2027. The Campaign for Fairer Gambling's 2024–25 report found that 89% of illegal streams in the UK feature adverts for bookmakers not licensed in the UK, and that illegal stream views have more than doubled in three years to 3.6 billion. Entain's submission describes football as "one of the black market's most effective acquisition channels."

Parallel Regulatory Tracks

A wider Premier League policy is already in motion. From the 2026/27 season, Premier League clubs have collectively agreed to remove all gambling brands from the front of matchday shirts — a voluntary measure announced in April 2023 that affects 11 of the 20 current Premier League clubs and is estimated to reduce shirt sponsorship value by roughly 38% for the most exposed clubs. Gambling partners will still be permitted on sleeves, shorts, training kits, and stadium signage. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport confirmed on March 23, 2026 that it will run a spring consultation on banning UK sports sponsorship by operators without a UK licence. The EFL has not adopted the front-of-shirt ban and continues its title-sponsorship contract with Sky Bet through 2029.

What It Means

For licensed UK operators, Entain's submission is the clearest attempt yet to use the IFR's start-up moment to close a competitive asymmetry: licensed brands shoulder 40% Remote Gaming Duty, financial risk assessments, advertising restrictions, and rising compliance costs, while unlicensed competitors with no UK presence purchase elite Premier League visibility. For the affected operators — Stake, W88, SBOTOP, bj88, 96.com, DE.BET — a successful IFR intervention would remove front-of-shirt exposure ahead of the 2026/27 season and could trigger cascading withdrawals across other UK sports as the DCMS consultation progresses. The IFR's response, expected before the 2026/27 season opens in August, will signal how aggressively the new regulator intends to interpret its own draft rules. For offshore operators serving UK users, the broader signal is that the UK's enforcement perimeter is now actively widening from licensing and payment rails toward sponsorship channels and acquisition infrastructure.

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