The Premier League’s ban on gambling sponsors on the front of shirts has reduced fans’ exposure to gambling marketing during live matches by only 10.5%, according to new research from the University of Bristol.

The study, presented to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Gambling Reform on 21 October, counted 15,571 gambling messages across the opening weekend of the 2026-27 season, from 21 to 24 August. That is lower than in 2024 but 41.6% higher than the 10,999 recorded in 2023, the first year of the series.

Logos moved, not removed

The front-of-shirt restriction, agreed by clubs in 2023 and in force from this season, almost eliminated gambling logos from shirt fronts. But branding on shirt sleeves and training kit rose by 362% compared with previous years, and pitchside advertising accounted for 72% of messages during live matches.

Across the seven live Premier League matches broadcast in the UK that weekend, researchers logged 11,205 messages, with gambling marketing visible for almost 20% of broadcast time. Newcastle United against Liverpool carried the most, with 2,702 messages, more than 12 a minute, and gambling visible for almost 41% of the broadcast.

The researchers found that live-match messages were down 35.9% on the 2023 to 2025 average, but said most of that fall came from fewer sponsorship “lead-ins” around broadcasts, which no regulatory measure targeted. Stripping those out, they attribute a 10.5% reduction to the shirt ban.

Broadcast and social media

The team also monitored 15 hours of Sky Sports News, which carried 2,637 messages, and 15 hours of talkSPORT radio, which carried 207, with at least one gambling advert in every commercial break. On social media, the ten gambling brands with the largest followings ran 1,023 paid adverts on Facebook and Instagram, with an estimated UK reach of 153.2 million accounts, 16.6 million of them belonging to users aged 18 to 24.

The report found that 93% of gambling content was not clearly identifiable as advertising, and that unlicensed brands still gained exposure through Premier League coverage. Over the four years of the series, Premier League matches averaged 2,449 gambling messages per game, compared with 1,677 in Germany’s Bundesliga.

The comparison with North America was starker still: NBA and NHL broadcasts in the US averaged 483 gambling messages per game, and 505 in Canada. The research was funded by the University of Bristol, with former England goalkeeper Peter Shilton and his wife Steph as longstanding patrons of the project.

“This cannot be presented as a success for self-regulation,” said project lead Dr Raffaello Rossi, senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Bristol Business School, according to the university’s release.

Pressure for mandatory rules

The report also criticised the industry’s digital advertising code, which requires paid adverts to target over-25s unless platforms can demonstrate reliable age checks, noting that the list of exempt platforms was changed to include Instagram without notice or published evidence.

Sir Iain Duncan Smith MP, co-chair of the APPG, said the findings were “further evidence that the voluntary approach to gambling advertising in football is failing”. The group is calling on the government to introduce stricter statutory rules on gambling advertising and close loopholes in the current mix of self-regulation and Advertising Standards Authority oversight.

The findings land as the UK industry is already grappling with higher taxes, and they are likely to strengthen calls for statutory limits on sports sponsorship and pitchside advertising, which until now have been left to voluntary codes.

New Brunswick is exploring whether to license private online gambling operators, raising the prospect of a third Canadian province following Ontario and Alberta into a competitive igaming market.

Finance Minister René Legacy confirmed the review in a statement to Brunswick News, saying the “government is exploring options around regulating private online operators”. The Telegraph-Journal first reported the move. No timeline, preferred model or legislation has been announced, and the existing framework remains in place.

Atlantic Lottery’s position

Legal online gambling in New Brunswick is currently offered only through Atlantic Lottery Corporation (ALC), the Crown corporation jointly owned by New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador. Opening the market would end that monopoly in the province and could complicate the four-province arrangement under which ALC operates.

ALC has estimated that unregulated gambling websites take more than CA$250m a year out of Atlantic Canada. Provincial budget documents show New Brunswick’s government lottery revenue has fallen by around CA$8m over the past two years, according to reports.

An ALC spokesperson, Greg Weston, said decisions about the region’s gambling framework “ultimately rest with the provincial governments that own the corporation”.

Models on the table

Officials are reviewing how other provinces and jurisdictions regulate the sector. Ontario opened its market to private operators in April 2022 through iGaming Ontario, while Alberta’s regime went live this year, with its grace period for grey-market operators ending on 13 October with around 50 sites live.

Michael Naraine, an associate professor of sport management at Brock University, has suggested that the Atlantic provinces could partner with Quebec to create a larger regulated market. He also pointed to New York’s mobile sports betting model, which limits the number of operators and taxes gross gaming revenue at 51%, as one alternative to Ontario’s open licensing approach.

The Canadian Alliance for Regulated Gaming, which represents operators, has not backed a particular model. Executive director Molly Cormier stressed the importance of oversight, player safeguards and enforcement, and raised concerns about gambling advertising reaching consumers in provinces where operators are not licensed.

What comes next

Several practical questions would follow any decision to open up. The province would need to choose a regulator and a licensing body, settle a tax rate, and decide what role ALC would play as one operator among many, as provincial lotteries in Ontario and Alberta continue to do alongside private licensees. It would also need a plan for the offshore sites already serving New Brunswick players, which in Alberta has meant a defined grace period followed by enforcement against operators that did not apply for a licence.

Premier Susan Holt’s government has made no commitment beyond the review, and any move to license private operators would require new legislation. However, the combination of falling lottery returns and offshore leakage that drove change in Ontario and Alberta is now clearly on the agenda in Fredericton.

For operators already licensed in Ontario and Alberta, a New Brunswick market would be modest in size, with a population of under one million, but it could open the door to a wider Atlantic Canada framework if the other ALC shareholder provinces follow.

Spain’s gambling regulator has launched a test version of its joint deposit limit system, which will cap how much each player can deposit across every licensed online operator combined, alongside a new Player Portal that gives individuals a single view of their gambling activity.

The Directorate General for the Regulation of Gambling (DGOJ), part of the Ministry of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs and Agenda 2030, opened both tools on Wednesday 21 October. The system will be mandatory from late March 2027, when the test phase ends.

How the limits work

By default, every player will be limited to €700 a day, €1,750 a week and €3,300 over any four-week period, counted across all the DGOJ-licensed operators where they hold an account. Until now, Spain’s limits have applied operator by operator, and those per-operator caps of €600 a day, €1,500 a week and €3,000 a month remain in place alongside the new system.

Players can change or remove the joint limits voluntarily, but only through a specific procedure that includes reinforced information about gambling risks. Any change takes three working days to take effect, and a limit can be raised only once every three months. The regulator’s day runs from 06:00 to 06:00, and its week from 06:00 on Tuesday.

Operators must connect to the central system and check it before accepting any deposit. They may not accept a deposit that would breach a player’s joint limit and must tell the player when one is refused. The DGOJ acts as the single verification point, so operators do not exchange player data with one another.

A single view for players

The Player Portal brings together a person’s deposits, stakes, winnings and losses across all authorised Spanish operators, with activity trends and history. Users can see which gambling accounts are registered to their identity, which the regulator says will help spot identity theft, set their own spending and activity alerts, manage their joint limits and download annual activity certificates. Access is free through the government’s Cl@ve digital identity system.

Legal basis and rationale

The framework was created by Royal Decree 520/2026, approved by the Council of Ministers on 23 June and published in the Official State Gazette two days later. It inserts a new Article 36 bis into Royal Decree 1614/2011, which governs licensed online gambling.

The decree’s preamble cites regulator data showing that around a third of active online players in Spain hold accounts with more than one operator, and that roughly 80% of accumulated losses are concentrated among 10% of players. The ministry says the joint limits are aimed squarely at that multi-account group.

The regulator is the data controller for the system, which processes identity details, contact information, the limits each player has set and their deposits. The decree bars the processing of special-category data such as health or biometric information, and requires data to be deleted once its purpose has been fulfilled. DGOJ director general Mikel Arana and Justo Sancho, head of its safe gambling control division, presented the tools to industry at the Gaming in Spain Conference in Madrid on 15 October.

Operators’ association Jdigital has questioned the measure, arguing that it adds complexity for licensed operators to address a minority of players and warning that further restrictions could push customers towards unlicensed sites.

Next steps

The launch comes as the DGOJ works through a broader safer-gambling agenda. Earlier this month the regulator reopened its consultation on risk-detection algorithms, and it has said an impact analysis of the 2020 advertising decree will be published in the coming weeks. For operators, the immediate task is integration: every licensee will need to be connected and checking the central limit before the system becomes binding next spring.