Arsenal’s First Title Push in 22 Years Plays Out as Clubs Face Revenue Cliff and Potential Blank Shirts Next Season

In 2023, Premier League clubs entered a voluntary agreement to remove gambling front-of-shirt sponsors by 2026/27 – and the cliff edge is coming. Going beyond this change, the UK government announced on February 23 that it would launch a consultation this spring aimed at banning unlicensed gambling operators from sponsoring British sports organizations entirely, potentially closing a loophole that currently allows offshore betting firms to maintain shirt deals.

This proposal goes further than the voluntary ban and covers sleeves, training kits, stadium branding, and every other promotional avenue. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy said it was “not right that unlicensed gambling operators can sponsor some of our biggest football clubs, raising their profile and potentially drawing fans towards sites that don’t meet our regulatory standards.”

Multiple Premier League clubs still carry unlicensed gambling firms as front-of-shirt sponsors heading into the tail end of the season. Under the voluntary ban, licensed gambling brands would still be permitted on shirt sleeves, training kits, stadium signage, and pitchside LED boards from next season. However, the government’s proposed crackdown on unlicensed operators would go further, potentially barring them from all sponsorship arrangements with British sports clubs, not just front-of-shirt placement.

Historically, gambling firms have paid up to double what alternative sectors offer for such a marketing opportunity. An audit published by The ESK found that gambling brands account for £95 million, or 23.3% of the total £408 million front-of-shirt market. For several of the affected teams, gambling sponsorships make up between 28% and 38% of total commercial revenue.

ESK’s analysis recorded 27,440 gambling-related messages during the opening weekend of the current season alone across TV, radio, and social media – fewer than 10% of which came from shirt sponsors. FX, crypto, fintech, and payroll brands are emerging as the primary competitors for the vacant front-of-shirt inventory.

The ban’s final weeks coincide with one of the most dramatic title races in recent Premier League history. Arsenal, who do not carry a gambling shirt sponsor, lead Manchester City nine points at the time of writing, with the Pep Guardiola-led side having a game in hand and a defining fixture between the two set to take place at the Etihad on April 19. Statistical models give the Gunners a 97% chance of winning their first league title since 2004.

None of the traditional “Sky Six” clubs are directly affected by the sponsorship ban: Arsenal wear Emirates, Manchester City wear Etihad, Manchester United wear Qualcomm, Liverpool wear Standard Chartered, and Tottenham wear AIA. Chelsea started the season without a front-of-shirt sponsor after failing to close a reported £65 million replacement deal. The 11 clubs carrying gambling brands on their shirts this season are concentrated in the league’s middle and lower tiers, where the financial impact will be sharpest, especially among the key relegation candidates.

Reports have emerged that some clubs are struggling to secure replacement sponsors in time for next season. According to BritBrief, the prospect of teams starting the 2026/27 campaign with blank shirt fronts is being described within the industry as “not a great look” for the world’s most-watched football competition. West Ham – one of the teams flirting with relegation this season – are among the clubs understood to have approached premium automotive brands, but agreements remain elusive.

Previous record shirt sponsorship deals in the Premier League include Manchester United’s £235 million agreement with Qualcomm signed in 2024 and Chelsea’s reported £40 million-per-year deal with Infinite Athlete. Manchester City settled a legal dispute with the Premier League over sponsorship rules in September, clearing the path for a new Etihad Airways deal reportedly worth up to £1 billion over 10 years – potentially the largest commercial partnership in British sporting history.

FAQ 🔎

• When does the Premier League gambling shirt ban start? The voluntary ban on front-of-shirt gambling sponsorship takes effect from the start of the 2026/27 season, making 2025/26 the final campaign with betting logos on matchday shirts.
• How many Premier League clubs have gambling shirt sponsors? Eleven of the 20 Premier League clubs carry gambling brands on their front-of-shirt this season, including Aston Villa, Everton, West Ham, Nottingham Forest, and Wolves.
• Can gambling brands still sponsor Premier League clubs after the ban? Licensed gambling operators can still appear on shirt sleeves, training kits, stadium signage, and LED boards, but a separate UK government consultation could ban unlicensed operators from all sponsorship arrangements entirely.
• How much revenue will Premier League clubs lose from the gambling ban? The collective value of front-of-shirt gambling deals exceeds £140 million per season, with some affected clubs deriving between 28% and 38% of their total commercial revenue from betting sponsors.

According to a report by Bloomberg News Wednesday (April 1), the incident on the Solana blockchain was flagged by cybersecurity and data analytics firms and acknowledged by Drift itself in a post on X.

“Drift Protocol is experiencing an active attack,” the post said. “Deposits and withdrawals have been suspended. We are coordinating with multiple security firms, bridges, and exchanges to contain the incident. This is not an April Fools joke.” 

The amount of cryptocurrencies involved, as determined by blockchain data analysts, could make this one of the biggest hacks in crypto’s history, the Bloomberg report added, noting that some of the stolen crypto was converted into Circle’s USDC stablecoin.

The hacker likely exploited a new market on Drift that lets users borrow other cryptocurrencies against an illiquid token called CVT, the report said, citing Xuxian Jiang, a researcher at blockchain security company PeckShield.

The incident follows a year in which cryptocurrency thefts rose to $3.4 billion for the first nine months of the year, according to blockchain data platform Chainalysis. Almost half of that figure came from one incident, the record $1.5 billion compromise of the Bybit crypto exchange.

In related news, PYMNTS wrote earlier this week about Chainalysis’ launch of blockchain intelligence agents created for fraud prevention. 

This offering “shows that the industry’s response to AI-driven crypto fraud and bot attacks is one that, inevitably, must be symmetrical,” that report said.

“Agentic blockchain defenses are not innovation for efficiency’s sake. They are defensive escalation,” PYMNTS wrote. 

“If bad actors can use artificial intelligence to accelerate activity, enforcement and compliance must use AI to compress detection and response times, meaning tasks that once took days should now take minutes, and investigations that required specialists must be executable by broader teams.”

Among the defining challenges of crypto, the report added, is that it is “transparent but not easily interpretable.” Transactions are public, though it takes specialized tools and expertise to understand them.

“If realized, the agentic approach being launched by Chainalysis could mark a significant redistribution of analytical power,” the report continued.

“Compliance officers, executives, and even non-technical stakeholders could access insights previously reserved for trained investigators. Reports that once took hours could be generated on demand. Alerts could be enriched, triaged and in some cases resolved automatically.”

EDX Markets Holding Company Files OCC Charter Application for Crypto Trust Bank

The application was made public on Wednesday, April 1, and first reported on by Bloomberg. It requests full fiduciary powers under 12 U.S.C. § 92a and authorization to provide digital asset custody, asset management, and settlement services exclusively for institutional clients. The proposed main office is located at 200 W. Madison, Suite 1450, Chicago, IL 60606.

EDX Markets launched in June 2023 as an institutional-only cryptocurrency exchange. Its founding backers include Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab, Virtu Financial, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, Hudson River Trading, and Miami International Holdings.

The platform operates on a non-custodial model, meaning it does not hold client assets during trading, a structure that mirrors how traditional finance (TradFi) firms separate custody from execution. The proposed trust bank would not change that separation. EDX Trust would handle custody, asset management, and settlement. Order matching and trading would remain with its affiliate, EDX Markets LLC.

If approved, EDX Trust would offer fiduciary custody of digital assets, cash, and stablecoins, using sub-custodian banks to manage private keys and reduce single points of failure. The bank would also manage custodied cash and stablecoins by investing them in highly liquid assets, targeting returns near the federal funds rate, along with permissible staking and yield-generating activity.

Settlement services would include riskless principal trading and end-of-day net settlement for clients operating on the EDX Markets platform or in over-the-counter (OTC) venues. The bank would not conduct proprietary trading.

The proposed board includes five members, among them independents with banking and risk backgrounds from First Business Financial, UBS, and Charles Schwab. Management draws from executives who have worked at Cboe Digital, the Options Clearing Corporation, Coinbase, and Kraken.

CEO José Antonio Acuña-Rohter, who previously led ErisX and Cboe Digital, is heading the effort. The bank would have no physical branches and no retail services. All operations would run electronically through APIs and a graphical interface.

The OCC added the application to its public list of pending digital asset licensing applications on March 26. No decision timeline has been announced.

The filing joins a growing list of crypto and fintech firms seeking national trust bank charters since late 2025. In December 2025, the OCC granted conditional approvals to five crypto-related institutions, including de novo charters for Ripple National Trust Bank and First National Digital Currency Bank, along with conversions for Bitgo, Fidelity Digital Assets, and Paxos. Early 2026 saw additional approvals for Crypto.com and Stripe’s Bridge unit.

Pending applications as of April 1 include Revolut Bank US, Zerohash National Trust Bank, Morgan Stanley Digital Trust, Coinbase National Trust Company, and World Liberty Trust Company, which has ties to the Trump family.

A new OCC final rule, effective April 1, 2026, clarifies that national trust banks may engage in operations of a trust company and activities related to non-fiduciary digital asset custody on a case-by-case basis. The rule removes one layer of legal ambiguity that had slowed institutional adoption.

A federal charter allows a firm to operate nationwide under a single regulatory framework, bypassing most state-by-state licensing requirements. For institutions that require regulated custody before allocating to digital assets, that distinction carries weight.

Like the others in line, the OCC will review the EDX Trust application for safety and soundness, capital adequacy, and compliance. The application includes a large volume of confidential exhibits, including the business plan and financial projections, for which EDX has requested FOIA protection.

FAQ 🔎

• What is EDX Markets applying for? EDX Markets Holding Company filed an application with the OCC on March 25, 2026, to charter EDX Trust, National Association, as a de novo national trust bank in Chicago focused on institutional digital asset custody and settlement.
• Who backs EDX Markets? Key investors include Citadel Securities, Fidelity Digital Assets, Charles Schwab, Virtu Financial, Paradigm, Sequoia Capital, and Hudson River Trading.
• What services would EDX Trust offer? The proposed bank would provide fiduciary custody of digital assets and stablecoins, asset management, and settlement services exclusively for institutional clients via electronic channels.
• Has the OCC approved the EDX Trust application? No decision has been announced; the OCC listed the application as pending on March 26, 2026, and will review it for safety, soundness, and compliance.