The University of Bristol published on October 21 its fourth study of betting advertising in the Premier League. Over the opening weekend of the 2026/27 season, researchers counted 15,571 messages, and the voluntary ban on logos on the front of shirts, by their estimate, reduced exposure in live match broadcasts by only 10.5%. The findings were presented to the British parliament.
The sample covered all Premier League matches shown in the UK on August 21–24, plus 15 hours each of Sky Sports News and TalkSport radio. Separately, researchers examined organic and paid social media content from the ten betting brands with the largest audiences.
Key findings from live broadcasts: at least one betting message was on screen for a total of 5 hours 16 minutes, nearly a fifth of broadcast time. Chest logos have almost disappeared, but branding on sleeves and training kit rose 362% compared with previous years. Pitch-side advertising accounted for 72% of all messages during matches.
Project lead Raffaello Rossi said: “This cannot be presented as a success for self-regulation”. The authors call for tougher regulation. What exactly it should include and when it should arrive, we did not establish. This is the researchers’ position, not a decision by a regulator or the government.
A caveat on the numbers: the 10.5% in the release is an estimate of the ban’s contribution, not a direct before-and-after measurement. We could not fully verify the methodology (what counts as a “message” and how the ban’s effect is separated from other factors), and we have not seen a peer-reviewed publication.
For the market, the takeaway is practical. According to the data, budgets have moved from the chest to sleeves, pitch-side and social media, that is, to places where the voluntary restriction does not apply. Whether this becomes an argument for mandatory rules depends on the reaction of the League and the government. So far there have been no official responses to the study.
