Could Rugby Become Gambling’s Next Big Sponsorship Market?

The Premier League’s front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship era is over, but the money behind it has not disappeared. From the 2026/27 season, clubs can no longer carry gambling companies across the front of their matchday shirts following the voluntary agreement reached by Premier League clubs in April 2023. Gambling brands can still advertise elsewhere in football, including on sleeves and training wear, but one of sport’s most visible advertising positions has effectively been removed from the market.

That creates an interesting opportunity for rugby.

Online casinos and betting companies still have enormous marketing budgets and a strong commercial reason to remain associated with sport. Great Britain’s customer-facing gambling industry generated £16.8 billion in gross gambling yield during the 2024/25 financial year, according to the Gambling Commission, representing annual growth of 7.3%. Remote casino, betting and bingo alone accounted for £7.8 billion, up 13.1% year on year.

The casino element is particularly important. Online casino games produced £5 billion of British remote gambling GGY during the same period, including £4.2 billion from slots. Remote sports betting generated £2.6 billion, with football contributing £1.3 billion and horse racing another £766.7 million. In other words, casino gaming is now substantially larger than online sports betting in revenue terms, even though sporting sponsorship remains one of the industry’s most powerful ways of putting brands in front of consumers.

More recent figures make the shift even clearer. “Between October and December 2025, Britain’s remote casino, betting and bingo sector generated £2.1 billion in GGY” according to the Fruity King online roulette site. Online casino alone contributed £1.5 billion, representing around 70% of the entire remote sector for the quarter.

That means the companies potentially looking for new sports sponsorship opportunities are not exactly short of money.

Football has historically been the obvious destination. Its global television audience, constant fixture calendar and enormous social media reach make it difficult for almost any sport to compete. Gambling brands were also prepared to pay premiums because Premier League clubs gave them international exposure that conventional advertising struggled to match.

The disappearance of betting logos from Premier League shirt fronts has therefore caused a genuine commercial shake-up. In April 2026, nine Premier League clubs were reportedly still searching for new front-of-shirt deals, with the collective sponsorship shortfall estimated at around £80 million.

By August 2026, Nielsen was describing the change as a fundamental rewriting of the sponsorship market. Its report said the Premier League was moving from what it called the “Betting Era” towards a more diverse sponsorship landscape involving technology, fintech and sovereign investment businesses.

Andy Milnes, Nielsen’s market lead for sports in Britain and Ireland, explained that “while the exit of gambling logos creates a short-term financial gap for some, it opens the door for a more diverse commercial ecosystem.” He also predicted a secondary “Tech Gold Rush”, with software infrastructure companies potentially becoming a dominant front-of-shirt category by 2028.

That may be good news for Premier League clubs, but it also means gambling operators have to think differently.

Rugby offers something football no longer can: potentially prominent association with a major sport without the same blanket restriction on gambling branding.

It also has a much bigger audience than casual observers sometimes assume.

The 2023 Rugby World Cup generated 1.33 billion viewing hours across television and digital platforms, making it the most-viewed rugby event ever recorded. That represented a 30% increase compared with the 2015 World Cup and a 19% increase compared with Japan 2019. Around 85% of its global viewing came through free-to-air television.

The tournament also demonstrated rugby’s international reach. France generated 481 million viewing hours, Britain came close to its record 2015 audience despite a 27% fall in overall linear television viewing, and Japan generated 175.9 million viewing hours. Rugby World Cup audiences compared with 2015 increased by 27% in Germany, 70% in Italy and 136% in the United States.

Those are very useful numbers for any online gambling company interested in international customer acquisition.

World Rugby Chief Executive Alan Gilpin said after the tournament: “As our sport continues to grow and break new markets, we will continue to work with our broadcast partners to enhance the viewing experience, especially for new audiences.”

That ambition should interest casino operators because online gambling is increasingly international. A digital operator does not necessarily need millions of customers in one country. It can acquire customers across multiple regulated jurisdictions, making a sporting property with audiences across Europe, Africa, Australia and parts of Asia commercially attractive.

English club rugby is also showing encouraging signs.

Premiership Rugby research reported that 980,000 additional fans aged between 18 and 34 were engaging with the competition, with that age group’s audience increasing by 43%.

The 2025 Premiership Rugby final then became the competition’s most-watched fixture ever. Bath’s victory over Leicester Tigers attracted an average combined television audience of 973,000 across TNT Sports and ITV1, with peak viewing reaching 1.26 million.

Those figures are nowhere near Premier League football levels, but sponsorship is not simply a contest to find the biggest possible television audience. Price matters too.

A gambling company might spend heavily to achieve limited secondary visibility around a Premier League team, while the same budget could potentially buy a much more substantial partnership in rugby. Naming rights, shirt positions, stadium branding, digital content, hospitality and official betting-partner status can create considerably more touchpoints with supporters.

That difference in value could become particularly attractive as online casinos look harder at the efficiency of their marketing spend.

Rugby league already provides evidence that the relationship can work.

Betfred first became title sponsor of the men’s Super League in 2017 and subsequently expanded its involvement across the men’s, women’s and wheelchair versions of the sport. Its partnership covers competitions including Super League, the Challenge Cup and England national teams. In 2023, Betfred and Rugby League Commercial announced another three-year extension that increased the value of the previous record deal by 25%.

Rhodri Jones, Managing Director of Rugby League Commercial, described the relationship as “hugely significant for the sport” and said the increased revenue would be vital in helping clubs achieve greater financial sustainability.

Betfred founder Fred Done was equally enthusiastic, describing rugby league as “one of our most enjoyable as well as successful sponsorships”.

That is perhaps the most important real-world example for casino companies studying rugby.

Betfred has not simply placed its logo alongside a few matches. It has built a long-term association with an entire sport. The company has become so closely linked with British rugby league that competitions such as the Betfred Super League and Betfred Challenge Cup sound almost inseparable from the sponsor.

Online casino businesses may look at that model and wonder whether something similar could work for them.

The distinction between a casino company and sportsbook has also become increasingly blurred. Many major gambling operators now provide sports betting, slots, roulette, blackjack, live casino, bingo and other products through the same account. Sporting sponsorship may therefore advertise a corporate gambling brand even if much of its eventual revenue comes from casino gaming rather than betting on the match itself.

That makes rugby sponsorship potentially valuable even when spectators are primarily interested in the sport.

There is also the question of demographics.

Football sponsorship gives operators enormous reach, but enormous reach can be inefficient if much of the audience cannot legally gamble or has no interest in the product. Rugby’s audience tends to offer strong adult demographics alongside high levels of fan loyalty, hospitality and event attendance. Premiership Rugby’s reported 43% growth among 18-to-34-year-old followers makes that proposition more attractive again.

A younger adult audience is particularly important for online gambling businesses because the product itself is increasingly digital.

The Gambling Commission reported 4.5 million average monthly active online slots accounts during the first quarter of 2025, the highest level recorded in that particular dataset. Players made 23.4 billion online slots spins during the same three-month period, while slots GGY increased by 11% year on year to £689 million.

Those figures demonstrate why online casinos continue to spend heavily acquiring customers. Even relatively small changes in brand recognition can be commercially meaningful in a market operating at that scale.

Rugby also has the advantage of multiple formats.

A gambling company could sponsor Premiership Rugby, an individual union club, international rugby, rugby sevens or rugby league. Within rugby league there are men’s, women’s and wheelchair competitions, giving a sponsor a much broader platform than simply putting its logo on one shirt.

The Betfred agreement shows this in practice. Its current relationship spans men’s, women’s and wheelchair rugby league, Challenge Cup competitions and England teams. The 2023 renewal was described by Rugby League Commercial as the most significant and wide-ranging commercial partnership in the sport’s history.

That breadth is something a Premier League club cannot easily offer.

There are obvious risks, though.

The football shirt decision did not appear from nowhere. It followed years of political pressure, campaigning and concern about the visibility of gambling advertising in sport. If gambling brands suddenly flooded rugby shirts, competitions and stadiums, rugby could eventually face exactly the same debate.

Rugby league appears well aware of that danger.

The Rugby Football League has introduced a Gambling Sponsorship Code of Conduct developed alongside Rugby League Commercial, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the Betting and Gaming Council and other stakeholders. It is built around four principles: protection, social responsibility, reinvestment and sporting integrity.

That gives potential casino sponsors a framework, but it also makes clear that sponsorship cannot simply involve handing over money and covering every available surface with a logo.

There is a family dimension as well. Rugby clubs often have deep community connections involving schools, junior teams and grassroots programmes. Operators would have to be particularly careful about how casino branding appears around younger supporters.

The strongest partnerships would probably involve more than advertising. Safer-gambling messaging, community investment, responsible marketing rules and strict age controls could become normal conditions of future agreements.

There is also no guarantee that rugby receives most of the money leaving football.

Boxing, darts, horse racing and other sports already have strong relationships with betting companies. Gambling brands can continue spending in football through digital partnerships, shirt sleeves, stadium advertising and training kits. Some may redirect their budgets towards affiliates, influencers and performance marketing rather than another sport altogether.

That is why rugby should not expect an automatic windfall.

What has changed is its bargaining position.

Premier League front-of-shirt inventory has disappeared for gambling businesses at precisely the moment Britain’s online casino market is growing strongly. Remote gambling GGY rose 13.1% in the 2024/25 financial year, online casino revenue reached £5 billion, and casino accounted for around 70% of remote gambling GGY in the October-to-December 2025 quarter.

Meanwhile, rugby can point to 1.33 billion Rugby World Cup viewing hours, a record domestic Premiership final audience and strong reported growth among younger adult supporters.

Put those trends together and the commercial logic becomes difficult to ignore.

Online casinos do not need rugby to become the new football. They simply need the price, audience and promotional freedom to produce a worthwhile return.

Rugby may therefore become one of several winners from football’s sponsorship reset. The most interesting opportunity is not necessarily filling every shirt with another betting logo. It is offering gambling companies deeper partnerships at prices that Premier League football could never realistically match.

Betfred’s long-standing relationship with rugby league has already demonstrated that gambling sponsorship can develop into something far bigger than a logo. For casino operators searching for their next major sporting platform, that example could become increasingly difficult to ignore.