The curse of online football gambling.

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I am referring to the almost unbelievable amount of online gambling which surrounds everything in the game these days. According to statistics, around 28% of football fans in the UK have wagered about £1.2 billion on matches last year. This kind of betting affects both football fans and football players as well, leeching off them all. Now I am not against gambling per se, but I do object to the way it has invaded and spoiled the game. It used to be that if you wanted to gamble, you would have to go to a casino, or a High Street bookie. But nowadays, mainly due to digital websites, smart phones and the money sloshing around, it seems that gambling is everywhere.
Gambling is and always has been a predatory practice. It is set up in a way that, even if the gambler wins, he will probably lose the next time, maybe even right away. There is no upside to gambling, socially or individually, even if some people here and there may have had some success with it. It might be fun in moderation, and it can maybe add some spice to various sports, especially if one has a personal interest in the result. But this is to ignore the much greater harm caused in the lives of various people by the gambling industry.
For example, there is the case of Liverpool supporter Ryan Myers who was 27 when he took his life in 2014 after becoming addicted to online gambling. In the months before he died, Ryan had tried to find help for his problem which he had recognised for the addiction it had become. He emailed one of the companies he was betting with and asked to be self-excluded. He had also contacted a recovering gambling addict he encountered on YouTube, and he had told him that he’d been trying to stop his gambling habit. But the sheer volume of advertisements and promotions he encountered every day on his phone were making it almost impossible to escape their clutches. He had recognised his problem, he was seeking to get out of it, but with their constant offers and enticements, it seemed that the gambling companies themselves were doing everything possible to pull him back in. And in the end, he thought there was only one way out. It has been estimated that there are around 409 suicides a year in England associated with problem gambling, according to a recent study by Public Health England.
Now some people might say that there is no harm in having a bet now and again. They might suggest that it’s just a harmless flutter, a bit of fun. And for most people, it might well be so. However, the tragedy of Ryan Myers shows us that in certain cases, it is far more serious than a bit of fun. In fact, if the gambling industry deliberately encourages those people who want to stop, then I suggest that it is playing with people’s lives.
These days gambling is recognised as something which can lead to addiction. Any such addiction is very serious and often costly, even if the victim does not end up taking their life. For example, there is the case of ex-Arsenal footballer Paul Merson. In a candid interview with Sky Sports, Merson opened up on his gambling addiction, and why his book ‘Hooked’ is more about helping others than telling his own story. A television pundit these days, Merson believes he lost more than £7 million to his gambling addiction. He states, “Addiction is a baffling, cunning, hideous disease that gets hold of you. Gambling addicts think they are bad people, but they’re not, they’re ill people who need to get well. That’s the message I want to get across.”
Elsewhere in the book he describes his other addictions, principally drinking alcohol and doing drugs. These days he would not survive very long in the EPL doing drugs because of the random testing which the football authorities insist upon. However, regarding the alcohol and drugs, he had the following to say, “The drinking and the rest of it stopped when I needed to be fit enough to do my job as a footballer. But the gambling stopped for nothing.”
Maybe that is one of the big problems with gambling. One can only drink so much alcohol at one time, and one can only take so many drugs at one time. However, there is no limit to how much money one can keep on betting and losing, especially when the gambling companies themselves keep on issuing someone more and more credit so that someone can carry on.
Another player who has had his problems with gambling is Ivan Toney, who currently plays for Brentford Football Club. He has been fined, and he may well face a playing ban. His case is currently ongoing. The problem here is that the Football Association simply forbids players and club staff from betting on football matches. This is so that no one will be tempted to fix a match in some way. Hypothetically, this might involve a player betting on a match, and then playing in that very same match where he is able to influence the outcome. Therefore, if any player were to bet on matches, the sanctions for this are likely to be severe. But Ivan Toney knows this, and he knew this years ago when he began to do it. Perhaps it tells us something of gambling’s addictive nature that he was nevertheless prepared to take the risk.
Now by an extreme stroke of irony, the company which sponsors and has its name on Brentford’s football shirt is Hollywoodbets. And yes, with a name like that, there are no prizes for guessing that it’s a betting company. So, although Ivan Toney is not allowed to bet on football, he advertises a sports betting company every time he takes to the field. Might this possibly be considered as a mitigating factor when he goes up before the judge? I have no idea, but probably not. However, this all appears very strange, and it sheds some light on one of the real problems concerning online betting and its connections with football. Out of 20 teams playing in the EPL, no less than eight of them (40%) have shirts sponsored by sports betting companies. Apart from Brentford and their Hollywoodbets, the other seven are Bournemouth (sponsored by Dafabet), Everton (Stake.com), Fulham (W88), Leeds United (SBOTOP), Newcastle United (Fun88), West Ham United (Betway) and finally Southampton (Sportsbet.io).
This kind of “logos on shirts” publicity is priceless to the sports betting companies. EPL games are shown on television all around the world, and 40% of the time, the viewers will see a betting company name displayed prominently on the chests of the players. And let’s say someone is a dedicated fan of Jack Harrison at Leeds, or of Declan Rice at West Ham. If that is the case, then every time this fan sees their idol wearing his club’s kit, he cannot help but also see the name of a betting company. In my opinion, these footballers are not keeping good company.
But it does not end there. If we were to visit a live match, the chances are that a sports betting company’s name will be flashing around the digital advertising boards at the side of the pitch. We also cannot avoid seeing this if we are watching on television. And if we were to download an app. on our phone to receive scores and team information, we can be sure that this will not come without some sort of betting message lurking in the background. These adverts are like flies. They seem to get everywhere. Now I understand why the gambling companies do this. They need the publicity to drive their sales, which really means driving people onto their websites to make bets. But why do the football clubs do it? It seems like such a contradiction. They, and their players in particular, represent several ideals in life, such as the importance of keeping fit, the importance of looking after one’s diet and having a healthy lifestyle. Do they really need to associate with companies whose money comes from exploiting those with addictions and weaknesses?

Now I accept that money is important to the game. Football clubs have all sorts of expenses which need to be paid, but do they really need to get their income from a predatory source which seeks to take advantage of their own and other fans? For me, that is a step too far, and they have allowed greed to come in. In fact, the moment football clubs became aware of cases like Ryan Myers, that should have been a warning light that all was not well. For those eight EPL clubs who are advertising gambling sites on their shirts, there are twelve others who have shown that it does not have to be like this. These twelve have found other sorts of sponsors such as banks, software companies and car sales.

In fact, there are those who believe that banning gambling advertising altogether might well be an idea whose time has come. Some people in football itself feel that enough is enough, and they are pushing back. League One Club Forest Green Rovers have come out with a call for an absolute ban on any gambling advertisements at football grounds, and that includes on the players’ shirts. For now, they are in the minority, but it’s encouraging to see that someone is prepared to stand against taking all this easy money. But that is what it keeps coming back to. Some people find it hard to resist all the money. And the reason is that there is so much of it sloshing around. Gambling generates enormous amounts of cash, but not, it should be said, for the punter. He is the one who ends up paying. But the companies themselves are rolling in money.

As an example of this, the highest paid director of Bet365 Group, believed to be founder Denise Coates, earned a salary of £213.4 million in the year to March 2022. She was also entitled to at least half of £100m in dividends, despite a fall in profits. She founded the Bet365 website in a portable building in Stoke-on-Trent more than 20 years ago, and she is thought to be one of Britain’s richest women and among the best-paid bosses in the world.

Regarding these huge payments, Labour MP Carolyn Harris, who co-chairs a cross-party parliamentary group examining gambling-related harm, said that losses made by users “are paying for the huge salaries of gambling bosses”. She called on the government to bring forward its white paper on gambling and update laws that have been in place for decades and which were no longer adequate.
Basically, what is required are some changes to the UK gambling market. Some of these were forthcoming last September, with the Gambling Commission outlining these new rules that went into immediate effect. The following rules aim to protect at-risk customers, and they require gambling operators:
To monitor a specific range of risk indicators that identifies gambling harm.
To flag any such risk indicators and place a requirement to take action in a timely manner.
To implement automated processes for any strong indicators of harm.
To prevent marketing and the take-up of new bonuses for at-risk customers.
To evaluate interactions and ensure the operator interacts with consumers at least at the level of problem gambling for the relevant activity.
To provide evidence of customer interaction for high risk to the Gambling Commission.
However, it would appear that what the Gambling Commission is asking the gambling industry to do, is to essentially stop providing gambling services to some of their most lucrative customers. It is against their interests to comply with these rules, and I would say that it is against their nature as well. Therefore, I expect many of them to carry on as before. They will probably realise that by doing this, their activities will earn them far more money than any fine they are likely to incur for breaching the rules. We shall see how this plays out.
However, what would really help the authorities to protect the vulnerable would be to have some solid legislation on the statute books. The long-awaited Gambling White Paper has been much delayed, mainly due to the pandemic and the many recent changes in the UK government. The current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said that legislation on gambling is a priority for his government. However, thus far there has not been much clarification about the specifics the White Paper will contain.
At the recent GambleAware Conference in the UK, the Minister for Gambling, Paul Scully, spoke very broadly about this White Paper which will be used to propose amendments to the Gambling Act of 2005. However, he did specifically mention the importance of a safer gambling environment. He also said that the main goal is for gambling regulation to be adapted so that it is both appropriate and suitable for the digital age. I would say that this is most important, because no one even possessed a smart phone in 2005, when the previous act was passed. Therefore, no one could ever have envisaged the kind of frenetic betting which is currently possible on a smart phone app.
The Minister says that he also wants protection to be put in place to safeguard individuals who are most vulnerable. Additionally, he mentioned that gambling advertising might well be looked at carefully, but it was not yet known what might be done about it.
When one sees just how vulnerable some people are to all this gambling, I am not sure if this is good enough. In fact, I would have hoped that the government would want to err on the side of helping the gambler. I say this because people have taken their own lives, while the industry earns millions of pounds every day and is therefore quite capable of looking after itself, thank you very much. Of course, when you do earn millions, even billions a year, it does help when the time comes to try and influence government policies. Too many lobbyists are hired in order to influence the way in which legislation is drafted. Too many Members of Parliament (MPs) receive donations from those with vested interests in gambling. This can be clearly seen on the House of Commons website. There is an obvious and direct correlation between those who obtain income from the gambling industry, and those who speak against gambling controls.
Liz Ritchie is the co-founder of the charity Gambling with Lives. She lost her son Jack when he racked up gambling debts that he could not pay and then committed suicide. She said: “We need an end to all gambling advertising, not a token gesture of removing the logos from shirts. We need proper affordability checks at a level closer to £100 that will prevent harm, and we need a smart statutory levy on the gambling industry to pay for truly independent public health messaging, research, and treatment.”
Tom Fleming, a spokesperson for the same Gambling with Lives, which supports families bereaved by gambling-related suicide, pointed out that progress of a sort had been made by getting the gambling industry to eschew using any current footballer to promote a gambling company. However, he also claimed that, even then, the industry had gone against the spirit of these rules by using celebrity former football players during the recent World Cup in Qatar. One example was former England International Peter Crouch. He is typical of a former player, who having hung up his boots, has forged a new career working as a football pundit on television. He is intelligent, erudite, humourous in a dry way and very watchable. All that is great, of course, and that’s what one needs to be a good pundit on television. However, as such, his comments carry a lot of weight, and there is no doubt that his promotion of Paddy Power would have persuaded many to have that first bet. Concerning this, Tom Fleming said, “The barrage of gambling advertising around the World Cup will lead to many people’s addiction. No one, let alone ex-footballers, should be promoting these highly addictive products, which is why the government must end all gambling advertising and marketing.”

I already mentioned that one of the big problems about gambling is that even when a punter wins some money, he tends to find it difficult to stop playing, because the chances are that he has become addicted. Almost inevitably, he will play again. In fact, he will play long enough to lose his winnings, and probably even more besides.
But if we ever needed convincing that gambling is a mug’s game, we should consider the case of Liam Manifold, an engineer from Staffordshire. He went to his local Coral betting shop and bet £10 on the following treble accumulator which gave him odds of 1,495 to 1. In his bet, he predicted that 1. Argentina would be crowned overall World Cup winners, 2. Lionel Messi would be named as the player of the tournament, and 3. France would also be in the final. And he got all three correct, which meant he expected to receive winnings of £14,950. But he did not get this sum. After taking his £10 bet, Coral refused to pay up more than £660, using some extremely specious argument about all three events being related.
Well, yes, they were indeed related to some extent, but Coral had nonetheless accepted the bet. And anyway, I consider that “the related part” is a very weak excuse. I invite the reader to try and make sense of their reasoning. It sounds like what it is; a contrived argument to get out of paying a large win. But what it undoubtedly tells us is that although most gamblers make their bets and lose money, even when someone makes a bet and wins, the company appears to have the right to simply refuse to pay up. It’s a simple case of “Heads I win, tails you lose.”
There are many people these days who believe that gambling companies have no place in the modern sporting arena, whether we are talking about football or cricket or whatever. But for now, using various strategies, they have bought their way in. It is to be hoped that they will soon be shown the door before even more sports fans become addicted and even suicidal. `);

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