Entain launches Seven: a new free-to-play football game built for today’s fans

Players select seven footballers each gameweek and compete for prizes when their picks score the first or last goal in their matches

Entain has announced the launch of Seven in the UK, a new free-to-play football app designed to engage a new generation of sports fans. Seven represents a new approach to innovation at Entain, combining entrepreneurial thinking with the scale, expertise and reach of one of the world’s leading sports betting and gaming companies.

Each gameweek, users choose a squad of seven footballers. A selection is successful when that player scores either the first or last goal in their match, with prizes available for three or more successful picks. The app features live updates, rolling selection deadlines, with leagues and social competition to follow in October, giving fans multiple reasons to engage throughout the football weekend.

Seven combines the squad-selection appeal of fantasy football with the live anticipation of a goalscorer prediction game. Designed for a broad audience of adult football fans, particularly digitally native fans aged 25-35, it has been built around the growing popularity of player-led fandom. Research[1] shows that engagement with sport is increasingly driven by individual athletes, while fans increasingly expect interactive, participatory experiences rather than passive consumption.

The launch follows the 2026 FIFA World Cup, during which betting activity across Entain brands showed continued changing fan betting behaviours with a significant shift towards individual player markets. Anytime goalscorer betting volumes more than quadrupled compared to the previous World Cup, underlining the growing appeal of following individual player performances alongside team success.

Seven has been developed to fill a clear gap in the market. While other products require users to correctly predict exact scorelines, and knockout-style formats eliminate participants after a single incorrect selection, Seven is designed to keep players engaged week after week through simple gameplay, strategic decision-making and ongoing participation.

Although Seven stands proudly as its own innovative free-to-play product, its partnership with Ladbrokes, Entain’s flagship UK sports betting brand, enhances the experience for football fans. Winnings from Seven are awarded directly through Ladbrokes, where users can unlock exclusive betting opportunities tailored specifically for Seven players.

The game originated from a dedicated team within Angstrom, Entain’s sports modelling and analytics company, before working alongside Entain teams to bring it to market. Angstrom has already played a key role in enhancing sports betting experiences across the Group, including powering exclusive markets and advanced parlay capabilities for BetMGM in the US. Seven applies the same culture of innovation to a standalone free-to-play experience focused on entertainment, engagement and audience-building, while creating future opportunities to introduce new adult audiences to the wider Entain ecosystem.

https://www.entaingroup.com/Bejay Patel, UK Managing Director at Entain, said: “Seven is a great example of how Entain can innovate at pace. By empowering a dedicated team to think differently and move quickly, we have built a genuinely distinctive product that broadens our portfolio and showcases the strength of our innovation culture.”

“The UK is the natural place to launch Seven. It is one of the world’s most engaged football markets, home to the Premier League, and a market where Ladbrokes has deep heritage and scale. Seven allows us to build on that strength with a fresh, free-to-play product that reflects how fans follow football today, combining player-led fandom, live match engagement and social competition in a simple weekly game.”

Ross Jarvis, Director of Strategy at Angstrom, said: “Seven started with a simple belief: football fans deserve a free-to-play experience built around how they actually follow the game today. Fans are increasingly drawn to players, stories, data and real-time interaction, yet much of the category has remained largely unchanged for years.”

“What makes it different is its simple first-or-last goalscorer mechanic, combined with a modern product experience. We’ve been able to operate with an entrepreneurial mindset, testing ideas quickly, learning fast and building relentlessly around the customer. The result is a product we believe can become a core part of adult football fans’ weekly routine and, over time, scale into new markets and sports.”

Seven has been built as an app-first experience and forms part of Entain’s broader ambition to develop innovative products that can scale globally across brands, markets and sports. Initially launching around Premier League football in the UK, the long-term vision is to establish Seven as one of the leading free-to-play sports experiences in the market with potential to expand globally.