Home of football statistics and historyBetting and football have always gone hand-in-hand. From the dawn of betting shops, when punters would drop in to bookmakers ahead of 3pm to place their bets on the football, to now, when it couldn’t be any bigger. Betting apps have completely transformed the way we make bets on football, with apps now also integrating casino and creating a real user journey for fans.
Today, you’re as likely to find a site offering real money pokies sponsoring a football team as you are a bookmaker, while online casinos like https://en.goldenrivieracasino.com/ are becoming more and more popular, and making their way into sport as “official casino partners”. But football hasn’t always been as intrinsically linked to gambling as it once was. Or certainly not as prominently. But what were the key events that changed that?
Fulham become UK’s first club to be sponsored by bookie
You have to go all the way back to 2002 to find the first betting company sponsoring a shirt. It was a move that completely changed the football landscape, as Fulham announced Betfair as their official shirt sponsor.
It paved the way for many more clubs to follow suit, and today half of all Premier League teams now have a bookmaker or casino emblazoned on their shirt.
Leicester’s 5000/1
It isn’t just deals with clubs that improved the relationship between football and betting though, Leicester’s 5000/1 league win in 2015/16 really put betting at the forefront of fans’ minds.
Prior to the season kicking off, Leicester were priced at 5000/1 with a number of bookmakers to win the division, but of course they did. Many lucky punters enjoyed some nice returns, but what it did was make more fans than ever before pay attention to what’s going on in the betting markets.
Betway and West Ham
No betting brand has sponsored a top six team in terms of their shirt sponsor as yet, but Betway’s deal with West Ham is the most lucrative shirt sponsorship outside of those clubs. This proved to be a gamechanger as many other clubs looked to get in on the act. Following that deal, more and more sides joined forces with betting brands, not just in the Premier League, but in the Championship and rest of the EFL too, where the financial gain from such brands is offering clubs a lifeline and hugely important source of income. That looks set to continue, with the gambling industry only growing. It’s perhaps only a matter of time before we see a top six club take the plunge for big, big money.
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