Audit of gambling dominance in English football

You'd think the ban on 'front of shirt' gambling adds would be the beginning of the end. But Paul makes it clear the income from gambling means it will continue to fund a huge chunk of our football...

In Everton's case: £12M (or is it 'only' £10M?) from Stake.com represents 38% of the club's total; commercial revenue. Although that must be only an estimate as the club's revenue for 2024-25 has not been published by the club yet -- nevermind 2025-26, which won't come out for another year!

Campaign groups such as The Big Step have argued that the voluntary ban is a smoke screen that does nothing to reduce the actual volume of gambling advertising, given that front of shirt exposure accounts for only 9.66% of total gambling messages during a broadcast. The research suggests that the 2026 ban will have a negligible impact on the number of betting logos fans see, as brands simply transition their spend to the more effective LED and social media channels.

That is until there's another attempt to change the rules relating to gambing adds in football.

Football finance "experts" project an additional £50m in revenues from the new stadium, we have new commercial deals with Pepsi and Budweiser, and the sales of Goodison and the women's team go straight to revenues as well, so this season's numbers could be significantly higher.

It just doesn't sit well that we have one of the best charitable arms in the league out there working with communities and at the same time our players out in these communities have “Stake” emblazoned across their gear.

I was thinking of checking the last set of numbers for the Deloitte Football Money League... but I see that should have been published in late January, so I must have missed what they said about us this year -- or we have dropped out of the Top 30 completely!

I can't see that Paul says where his numbers are from, and he probably is using many different sources, but Premier League clubs typically don't publish their accounts for the previous season (2024-25) until the end of 2025 (for PSR) and often not before the end of March 2026.

And Paul makes the point repeatedly that he's talking about 2025-26. I just find that puzzling.

Let's look at the 2023-24 numbers though, as these have been published. If Commerical income is £38.6M and Stake sponsorship totals £12M, that's only 31%, not the 38% Paul quotes. If Stake is really only £10M (the number Paul states first), that's only 26%.

The sale of Everton Women didn't go through until July 2015, so goes into the 2025-26 financial year, along with any profit from the sale of Goodison. Not sure if these are classed as Commercial Income but if they are, that would take it up to around £100M for the current season, while Stake.com remain at £10M or £12M, so only 10% or 12% of Total Commercial Income -- certainly not 38% Paul cites.

But if part or all of those profits actually funds the unearthing of a proper Centre Forward or Right Back, what then.

Does a 'gambling pound' buy any less...or more...than a 'gate money pound', a 'meat pie pound', or heaven forfend - 'a sky pound'.

It could be that we're firmly stuck...caught...entrenched...mired? in the 'Greed is Good' League and you take it all - or take none.

You can't be half pregnant, you either are - or you're not.

Expect nothing to change, except maybe an increase.

If not by design then definitely by chance.