A 2020 study from the University of Stirling which looked at five major football matches including Premier League fixtures, found that a gambling sponsor was referenced every 21 seconds during a typical TV broadcast.
Currently, 40% of shirt sponsors in the Premier League in the 22/23 season are to from gambling companies, with the next closest being financial services with 20%. SkyBet sponsors the EFL, several high-profile YouTube football shows are either produced or backed by gambling companies.
It is easy to see Ivan Toney's charges as an isolated incident, an individual failure. But the reality is that betting in football is a much wider discussion.
READ MORE: Ivan Toney breaks silence after FA confirm ban decision amid Arsenal and Chelsea transfer links
On Wednesday evening, the Brentford striker was banned from football for eight months after admitting to 232 breaches of the Football Association's betting rules. This means he will not be available until early 2024, effectively missing half of the next campaign.
Brentford and Toney have released statements since noting the lack of written reasons for the charge in response before taking further action.
The repercussions for Toney, a player who could have gained a lucrative transfer away from Brentford this summer, are very real. Not only impacting his reputation but halting his ascent after another productive season in front of goal in the top flight.
What Toney represents however is a chance to speak about the wider impact of gambling in football.
The Big Step, a campaign to end gambling advertising and sponsorship in football, tweeted a selection of photos with Toney throughout his career at Newcastle, Peterborough and Brentford. Every one of them has a gambling sponsor within them. Two of the player holding up a Player of the Month award with the Sky Bet logo emblazoned on the front, the others showing the sponsors for Newcastle and Brentford - Fun88 and Hollywood Bets on their shirts.
The tweet simply reads: "If you force young people to endorse addictive products, don’t be surprised if they use them."
That belief is reflected throughout the game, most starkly several years ago when, at the age of 15, Chris Rigg appeared for Sunderland in an FA Cup tie with Spreadex on the front. Spreadex specialises in spread betting, among the most addictive forms of gambling. 32Red helped to fund the signing of Wayne Rooney for Derby County back in 2018. Stoke City are owned by Bet365, Brighton chairman Tony Bloom built a fortune in gambling.
Everywhere we look around us, the influence is there. But it is not just looking at club sponsorships that highlight the issue campaigns like The Big Step face. Although the Premier League recently announced to withdraw betting sponsorship from the front of their shirts by the end of the 2025-26 season, that will not completely remove them from shirts, with sleeve sponsors still permitted.
James Grimes, who is the founder of The Big Step campaign said that the recent announcement is a “significant acceptance of the harm caused by gambling sponsorship. No gambling ads are seen more than those on Premier League shirts, worn by billions around the world.
“But just moving logos to a different part of the kit while allowing pitch-side advertising and league sponsorship to continue is totally incoherent.
“Without government action on all forms of gambling ads in football, at every level, online casinos will exploit any voluntary measures and continue to market their products through our national sport.”
The gap in gambling sponsors between the Premier League and other top European leagues reflects a cultural issue. As detailed by Statista research, in comparison to other major European leagues, the Premier League has six more than the second closest Ligue 1 with Serie A and the Bundesliga having zero.
It also does not completely eliminate the influence of sponsors in adverts on broadcasting, radio and around stadiums. 888 Sport and BetVictor both have set up YouTube channels featuring popular online creators to debate contentious topics and share viral clips on social media. Even away from the stadium on a Saturday, fans are shown reminders of gambling.
As explained by The Financial Times, about £60million of annual revenues are at stake for the eight clubs affected by the ban and the growing reliance on gambling sponsorships on shirts has risen since the early 2000s to 2022.
The Guardian has previously reported that English clubs have been taking a cut of the money fans lose with the bookmaker SkyBet, prompting accusations that they are exploiting supporters and gambling addicts.
This problem is a deep-rooted cultural one. Will there be another Toney example? Probably. But purely banning him for eight months will do little to change much given English football's ever-expanding relationship with gambling.
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