You will have noticed the Premiership looks different this year. Not a single gambling logo on the front of a matchday shirt across the whole division. Then you look at our new Umbro pinstripes and there is Unibet, exactly where it has been for the past few seasons, and exactly where it will be until 2028/29 under the Kindred Group deal Rangers signed last year. We have written about where that relationship is heading and what it means for the club, but the question a lot of supporters are asking right now is a simpler one: why does our league look so different from theirs?
The Rules Are the Same on Both Sides of the Border
The first thing worth knowing is that the big gambling reforms from the past two years were never an English thing. The Gambling Commission covers the whole of Great Britain. Whatever rules came in apply to a punter in Lochgilphead exactly as they do to one in Liverpool.
And the rules that came in were significant. Affordability checks kick in once a customer’s net deposits hit £150 in a rolling month. There is now a statutory levy that sends money toward research and treatment of gambling harm. On the casino side, the changes were most drastic around slot sites: stakes capped at £2 a spin for 18 to 24 year olds and £5 for adults, autoplay banned, rapid spin features gone. Several smaller operators looked at the cost of implementing all that and decided it was not worth it. The ones left standing are the better-capitalised brands.
So Why Is Ibrox Still Covered in Betting Logos?
Because the shirt ban in England was not a legal requirement. It was a voluntary agreement the Premier League clubs made among themselves back in April 2023, with a deadline of this season to comply. The Gambling Commission did not force them to do it. The government review that produced the stake caps and affordability checks did not produce a shirt ban. The clubs chose it themselves.
The SPFL never had that conversation. William Hill is the title sponsor of all four divisions — we play in the William Hill Premiership — which tells you everything you need to know about how central gambling money is to the Scottish game. Rangers earn a fraction of what English clubs pull in from broadcasting. Walking away from a guaranteed shirt sponsor would take a financial hit that most Scottish clubs cannot absorb.
So when people ask why English shirts are clean and ours are not, the honest answer is: it is a choice, not a law. Those reforms cover both countries. Only the Premier League decided to go further.
The Brands Still Backing Us Are the Ones Who Survived the Reform Wave
The Gambling Commission’s guidance on the slot stake limits makes clear these rules apply to every remote casino licence in Britain, which includes the operators whose names appear at Ibrox. Unibet on the front, 32Red on the training kit, whatever is on the boards around the pitch — all subject to the regulatory framework that covers every other licensed operator in the country. The guidance also notes the caps only cover online slots, not table games, which shows exactly where the regulators were pointing.
The operators still investing in Scottish football are the ones who had the infrastructure to absorb all of it: the compliance costs, the game rebuilds, the affordability monitoring, the levy. Smaller companies folded or pulled back. The bigger names that came through intact are the ones we see on shirts and perimeter boards across the SPFL.
For us as Rangers supporters, the practical result is a shirt that looks much as it did last season. The rules governing the brand on the front have changed significantly. Whether Scottish football ever voluntarily follows England’s path is worth debating, but that debate is for another day. For now, the logo stays.