As the Premier League and Prime Minister question the prominence of betting companies, Hannah Rich reflects on the knotty ethics of the gambling industry and the need for regenerated community spaces. 14/08/2026

When the Premier League returns next weekend for 2026–27, there will be a conspicuous absence: front–of–shirt gambling sponsors, which have been collectively banned from this season.

You might be forgiven for not noticing, given the plethora of opportunities that will still abound for betting companies to promote themselves, from pitchside hoarding to shirt sleeves (but crucially only the sleeves) and incessant ad–breaks during televised games. But still, it is a gesture in the right direction, in recognition of quite how ridden with gambling the sport has become.

Elsewhere this week, betting shops were one of the entities that Prime Minister Andy Burnham took aim at in his announcement of plans to improve high streets. Town centres, he said, had been “hollowed out” by years of economic decline and in many communities, high streets are unloved and “unrecognisable”. The proliferation of betting shops is part of that, along with vape shops, mini–marts and barbers, all of which councils will be given greater powers to regulate.

There are three times as many gambling premises (including casinos and gaming centres) in the most economically deprived local authorities than there are in the least deprived areas, and betting shops account for the majority of these. A government review in 2023 found that the cost to the UK economy of the societal and health–related harms of gambling was an estimated £1.05 to £1.77 billion, also disproportionately concentrated in already disadvantaged population groups. There is also a litany of evidence for the negative socioeconomic and physical health outcomes of problem gambling in particular. (Closing or limiting the number of physical betting shops is not a panacea; moving gambling online further reduces the social aspect and accountability of the industry, such as it is, and does nothing to tackle the associated harms.)

Conversely, I come from a city where almost everything from the cancer unit in the hospital to the local hospice, and countless other community projects, has received funding thanks to the beneficence and philanthropy of the Coates family, founders of the Bet365 gambling empire. As the potbanks and manufacturers have closed, one by one, Bet365 is now also the largest local employer in the Staffordshire Potteries. Through their charitable foundations, they have given away millions of pounds, much of it directly to the communities where their business is headquartered, where employees live and where the Bet365 brand is itself a byword for the local football club and ground they own. (Somewhat ludicrously, even the road signs directing away day visitors to the Bet365 stadium effectively function as free advertising for the betting company, and being in the lowly Championship this season means they are still free to advertise on the team’s shirts.)

The ethics of gambling funding health care, directly or otherwise, are knotty. At a time when the patchwork of access to palliative care is in the spotlight, it is problematic to say the least that there are parts of the country where hospice provision and a good death is reliant on the proceeds of others gambling away their livelihoods. There is virtue in philanthropy, to be sure, but at what cost? I am not convinced that the charitable contribution of the Coates family and other industry giants like them even begins to erase the human and economic costs and harms of gambling. Almost everyone in Stoke knows someone who has been treated at the cancer unit or the hospice, but almost everyone also knows someone whose life has been ruined on some level by gambling.

Ahead of the budget last autumn, when the government mooted increasing some forms of taxation on the gambling industry, a startling argument emerged in its defence. Far from being dens of iniquity, it went, betting shops are the new community hubs and their workers the new Samaritans. “Our betting shops are sanctuaries. I worry for the men if we close,” ran the headline of a Times article which lauded the contribution of the shops’ staff to the health and wellbeing of their customers. It painted the workers – overwhelmingly middle–aged women – as akin to social workers, with their shops being the only place many of their regulars could stay warm amid a cost–of–living crisis and soaring heating bills. It was an astonishing piece, and one I have found myself thinking about frequently ever since.

Admittedly, this is not an entirely new phenomenon. When my uncle, who ran a bookies’ shop on a less than salubrious Scottish high street, died a decade ago, the local newspaper announcement of his death read ‘late of’ followed by the name of the shop rather than the place he called home so that his regulars could come and pay their respects.

But if the argument that we owe betting shops a debt for their community contribution has any truth to it, then the hollowing out of the high street is far worse than even Andy Burnham fears. Recent polling from More in Common found that the public are more likely to say that they would prefer to see an empty shop front than a gambling shop on their high street. Not only is closing or limited betting shops likely to be popular therefore, but it suggests the public already recognise the flaw in the argument that such premises have community benefit. An empty shop, after all, contributes nothing to the economy or to the quality of life locally, but at least it does less harm.

There is a need, however, to go beyond this and build spaces that genuinely add to communities, rather than sucking the life out of them. For many of us, faith communities and their buildings naturally fulfil this role, and the Co-operative Party’s effort to revive the social clubs that were once the beating heart of communities also responds to the need for shared community spaces.

We cannot resign ourselves to a world where betting shops are the last bastions against the loneliness epidemic, and the gambling industry our strongest hope of regeneration in cities like Stoke. It is not just a crisis of local business or of micro–economic growth, but a crisis of community itself, and one of human dignity. Real regeneration means creating places of belonging that do not depend on people losing money in order for others to survive.

I would celebrate if high streets followed the front of football shirts in the list of places where gambling is no longer welcome, but I would celebrate even more if it was accompanied by the regeneration of the sort of community spaces, relationships and human connection that we are sorely in need of.

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