Wolves come to the ProAmpac Stadium on Saturday 28 November, live on Sky Sports+ at 12:30, with Midnite across the front of their shirts. Birmingham City arrive before them carrying Coral. Two of the biggest clubs to visit Lincoln in decades will both be wearing betting and casino brands, and that is no coincidence in our first Championship season since 1961.
The reason sits one division above us. Premier League clubs agreed to take betting brands off the front of their shirts from this season, so the bookmakers came down a level, and the EFL argued that losing that money would hurt Championship clubs already running on thin margins. We won League One with 103 points and sealed promotion with a 2-1 win at Reading, and arrived in the division in the same summer the gambling brands did.
Coral, Midnite and bet365 Have Moved Into the Championship
Coral is Birmingham’s principal partner for 2026/27, the first front-of-shirt deal in its 100-year history. Midnite is on the front at Middlesbrough, where it replaced Unibet, at Sheffield United for a second season and at Wolves for their 150th. Stoke carry bet365, which is owned by the same family that owns the club, so the Championship now has more gambling names on its shirts than at any point in recent memory.
Those names are not only bookmakers, whatever the shirt suggests. The apps behind those shirts carry casino lobbies alongside the football markets, and live roulette has become one of the main attractions in them, with a real dealer spinning a real wheel on camera, in European, American and faster Lightning versions. A shirt deal sells the whole app, not just the odds on Saturday afternoon.
What the Shirt Is Really Advertising
That is why a televised 12:30 kick-off matters so much to a sponsor, but not every gambling brand needs a shirt deal to reach football fans. Grosvenor takes sports bets and runs a live casino, letting adults spin roulette with a live dealer at tables streamed from its own UK casinos, with Visa and PayPal on the same cashier page. Whether a brand pays for the shirt or not, the football weekend is the shop window for everything else it sells.
Our Backers Are Closer to Home
Our own shirts tell a different story. Branston is on the front again, and Sincil Bank is now the ProAmpac Stadium under a ten-year ProAmpac naming rights deal with the packaging firm. While Birmingham and Wolves rely on national gambling brands, our two biggest partners are Lincolnshire businesses, which says a lot about how this club has been built.
That local backing pays for decisions that matter on the pitch. The club has agreed a new deal for our title-winning captain, Tendayi Darikwa, while he recovers from a knee injury. Keeping a captain through an injury costs money, and Lincoln have done it without a betting brand on the shirt.
Sky Bet’s Name Is on the League Itself
Betting money still reaches Lincoln, just by a different route. Every game we play this season is in the Sky Bet Championship, with the league’s title sponsor helping to fund the EFL from the top down. We may not wear a gambling brand, but we play in a league named after one.
That makes the shirt question more interesting than it first looks. Clubs choosing local partners still benefit from gambling money through the league, while clubs with betting sponsors on the front depend on it directly. As the Premier League change pushes more of those brands into our division, that gap between the two models is likely to grow.
Wolves on 28 November
When Wolves walk out at the ProAmpac, the contrast will be right there on the pitch: Branston on one side, Midnite on the other. One shirt advertises a Lincolnshire food company, the other an app offering football bets and roulette tables to a national TV audience. After 65 years away, we are about to find out how well our way of doing things holds up in a league increasingly paid for by the other.