Everton have avoided a potentially problematic situation after it was revealed the UK government has decided to shelve plans to ban gambling companies from sponsoring the shirts of English football clubs.
Last year the government undertook a review into its 17-year-old gambling legislation and its relationship with football in a bid to determine whether it was fit and proper for the modern age. Measures such as a blanket ban on betting firms taking prominent shirt sponsorship was something that was under serious consideration.
In the 2021/22 season almost half of the teams in the Premier League had front of shirt sponsorship from a gambling firm, with Newcastle United, West Ham United and Leeds United among them. This season other clubs have taken on a main partnership with betting firms, including Everton who earlier this month revealed that they had agreed a deal with online casino Stake.com to replace previous sponsors Cazoo from the 2022/23 season in what was described as a club record multi-year deal.
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The deal with Stake.com has not been without its controversy with a petition for the club to scrap the partnership having attracted over 20,000 signatures online owing to its promotion of gambling and potentially putting vulnerable fans at risk.
Just prior to the pandemic, at the start of 2020 Everton CEO Denise Barrett-Baxendale said: "Moving forward, in an ideal world we would look to have a different type of sponsor on the front of our shirt."
That comment was made in relation to the decision to end the partnership with SportPesa, the global sports betting firm that had sponsored the front of shirt for the Toffees prior to Cazoo. But with the impact of the pandemic on Everton's finances, something that only served to exacerbate an already difficult financial situation due to heavy spend during the early years of Farhad Moshiri's reign outstripping revenue growth, Everton made the decision to partner with Stake.com at a time when their Premier League status was under threat and the market that they would have hoped to have been fishing in wasn't as buoyant as they would have expected.
With the potential for a front of shirt ban on betting companies in the Premier League having been a concern to clubs since the government's decision to review its legislation, taking on new sponsors from the gambling industry may have been perceived as a risk.
But according to the The Times the government have shelved plans to ban such sponsorships, although restrictions are set to be imposed that could cost the industry as much as £700m. There is also the suggestion that clubs will be encouraged to abandon such prominent partnerships voluntarily, with the government retaining the option to introduce legislation to ban them in the future.
The Times claim the curbs will include maximum stakes of between £2 and £5 for online casinos, a ban on free bets and VIP packages for those who incur heavy losses, and “non-intrusive” affordability checks.
The UK is one of the world’s biggest gambling markets, with profits of £14.2bn in 2020, with Public Health England estimating that problem gambling caused an annual economic burden of £1.27bn
A PHE study in September 2021 found an estimated 409 suicides were linked to gambling in England every year.
The petition against Everton's partnership with Stake.com, launched by Toffees season ticket holder Ben Melvin, who had lost hundreds of thousands of pounds gambling over the course of a decade, read: "Everton are the People’s Club. It is a club that cares deeply for the people, and it’s supporters. Everton, over the years, have constantly set very high standards and trends for others to follow. We have to maintain these high standards.
"A partnership with Stake cannot sit comfortably alongside the fantastic work done by the club’s Everton In The Community in tackling mental health issues. I'm calling on fellow Blues, and other football fans, to urge Everton to U-turn on this gambling partnership."
As well as front of shirt sponsorship Stake.com, who last season sponsored Watford in the Premier League, will have visibility on advertising around Goodison Park during the course of the partnership.
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