BetMGM £40 in Free Bets for the FA Community Shield: Arsenal v Man City on August 16th

August 15, 2026

by Emma Harrison

English top-division football is back on the menu this weekend – and you have the chance to pick up £40 in BetMGM free bets to get your season underway in the manner of your choosing. It’s Community Shield time!

Much like last season’s Premier League title race, this game brings together Arsenal and Manchester City. But it’s not the Continuity Shield – at least not for Manchester City; they’ve made some notable changes that will give this showdown a bit of an edge. For Arsenal, it’s going to be about building on last season’s title, their first in 22 years.

A new era for City; something to build on for Arsenal

It feels odd to talk about Manchester City without talking about Pep Guardiola: he’s been the manager there for ten years and changed the face and much of the language of English football. The unenviable task of following him has fallen to Enzo Maresca, who learned under Pep as a coach at City and who Chelsea fans will remember as the guy who won them the Club World Cup and then left six months later after a dispute with the owners. He’s added Elliot Anderson to the City midfield but otherwise pretty much inherits the old squad; now we see how he shapes it in his image.

For Arsenal, the hard work of winning the Premier League has finally been done. Now begins the hard work of seeking to retain it. Like City, there’s modest change to the playing squad. Bruno Guimaraes has arrived from Newcastle and will fit right into a squad that likes to keep possession. Christos Tzolis arrives from Club Brugge and will offer a more direct attacking threat than main man Viktor Gyokeres. But the main change is that they’re now the team being chased, and that starts here. The top UK betting sites indicate that there’s little to choose between these sides.

Bet £10 Get £40 for the Community Shield with BetMGM

If you have some ideas on how you’d bet on the Community Shield, then BetMGM UK can help you with them. They have an interesting opening offer for new customers which allows you £40 in free bets when you sign up, deposit at least £10, and then bet £10 on an outcome that has odds of Evens or longer. The free bets are divided into two £10 free single bets on an event of your choosing, and a further two accumulator bets of the same value. The bets drop into your account when your initial bet resolves, so if you want to use them on the Community Shield, remember to place that qualifying bet on an event that ends before 3 pm on Sunday.

This offer does not require a BetMGM promo code; just place your qualifying bet and ensure that it resolves in time for you to use your free bets as you wish. And just as important as that is the expiry period; once those bets appear in your account, you have seven days to use them. But there’s plenty of European and domestic football to be played in the next week, so you shouldn’t run short of opportunities to leverage those free bets in a way that suits you.

Make your Community Shield bets today

As excitement builds for the start of another Premier League season, the best UK betting promotions can be found here at SailGP. BetMGM is giving you the chance to pick up £40 worth of free bets, and to take advantage, all you need to do is get over there and make a qualifying bet. You can go there now by clicking our links and banners, and then follow the instructions to sign up and qualify for the betting offer. It really couldn’t be simpler.