Everton criticised after announcing gambling firm sponsorship deal
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Everton finished four points above the Premier League relegation places last season
Everton's announcement of a club-record multi-year sponsorship deal with a gambling firm has been criticised as "saddening" by a prominent campaigner.
Stake.com becomes the club's main sponsor and its name will appear on both the men's and women's shirts.
Premier League clubs could face a ban on having gambling sponsors on their shirts when the UK government updates its gambling laws this month.
Last season, nine top-flight clubs had betting firms as a main shirt sponsor.
Norwich City were the only Premier League club who did not have a betting partner among the competition's 20 teams in 2021-22.
Gambling campaigner James Grimes of The Big Step - which aims to end all gambling advertising and sponsorship in football - said: "Gambling sponsorship is unpopular, unhealthy and strongly rumoured to be on its way out of football. So for Everton to announce this partnership now is massively tone deaf."
He added: "It's saddening that the self-titled 'people's club' is putting profits before its own supporters - especially young fans, who face a season being unable to wear the same shirt as their heroes while encouraged to use addictive online casinos."
Any ban on gambling shirt sponsors is likely to be applied for the 2023-24 season at the earliest, and would follow a recommendation by a House of Lords select committee in 2020.
Sources told BBC Sport that a ban on gambling shirt sponsors in the Premier League was included in a draft government white paper with law changes expected to be announced in June.
Two years ago, Everton chief executive Denise Barrett-Baxendale said "in an ideal world" the club would not have a gambling sponsor on their shirts but added they had to consider commercial needs.
A recent YouGov survey reported 1.4 million people in Britain were being harmed by gambling with a further 1.5 million at risk.
But the Premier League and EFL maintain there is no evidence to show a causal link between gambling sponsorship and problem gambling.
Everton have posted losses of £372m in the past three seasons - £170m of which they attribute to Covid-19.
The Toffees secured their Premier League status with one game remaining last season, ending the campaign four points above the relegation places.
The club had been sponsored by car firm Cazoo for the past two years.
Earlier this year the club suspended their Russian sponsorship deals with USM and other companies owned or part-owned by Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who was sanctioned by the UK government following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
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