Online betting firms sweep Premier League

MANCHESTER CITY FC will start the new season as the only Premier League club without a betting or gaming company partner, shunning a sector that has become one of the most reliable revenue streams for English football.  

City’s commercial objection to gambling is based on the source of the club’s ownership and major sponsors such Etihad, ADTA and Etislalat in Abu Dhabi, where gambling is illegal. In contrast, City’s domestic rivals have cashed in on the sector’s appetite for the Premier League and its global profile with deals worth more than £20m per annum in aggregate.

During the pre-season, three Premier League teams signed major shirt sponsorship deals with gaming companies cementing the sector’s position at the top of the Premier League shirt sponsorship table. Aston Villa, Wigan and West Brom, all of which have inked two-year agreements that came into effect July 1, joined four other top-tier clubs in partnership with gambling firms: Bolton Wanderers, Sunderland, Wolves and Premiership new boys, Swansea City.

The new deals for West Brom and Wigan, who are now sponsored by Bodog and 12BET respectively, represent the most lucrative sponsorship agreements in each clubs’ history. Both are valued by Frontiers at over £1m per season.

The gaming sector has thus far acted as a major sponsor of lower tier Premier League clubs with the exception of Aston Villa, which is partnered by a casino group instead of an online gambling franchise. This relatively small scale spending nevertheless provides online gambling companies the with the opportunity to increase brand awareness, enter new markets and, most importantly for this kind of industry, drive traffic to their money-making websites.

“Such deals as ours with Wigan Athletic are an effective way to introduce a betting brand into new markets,” Rory Anderson, CEO of 12BET, told Frontloaded. “We want to build the brand in the European market and the other benefit is the exposure 12BET will receive in key Asian markets.

"The Premier League’s popularity in Asia means that this sponsorship should in theory lead to uplift in brand recognition in that area. The aims are to build the brand and ultimately to generate response.  We will be looking for increases in new sign ups and turnover."

Away from shirt sponsorship deals, each Premiership club apart from Manchester City, has an agreement with a betting company. Some of these take the form of sponsorship whereby the brand becomes the official betting partner, and others are simply an agreement to provide a betting link through the club website. The most lucrative of these is the deal struck between current champions Manchester United and Betfair, which Frontiers values at around £4.5m over three seasons.

188bet are the most active of the official betting partners with agreements with five top-flight clubs including Chelsea and Liverpool. See below for a full list of Premier League betting partners.