A study on gambling marketing exposure conducted in the United Kingdom revealed that the matchday programmes of local football clubs are laden with betting ads and branding. More concerning is the fact some of these advertisements target pages aimed at minors.
The results of the study are more than disconcerting. It was established that the exposure to gambling-related advertising content is four times more prominent than that for alcoholic beverages. As many as 44 matchday programmes for the EFL Championship and the Premier League were analysed to establish they included roughly 2.3 gambling-related ads.
In 38 instances, the exposure was incidental, for example, when footballers wore sponsorship shirts displaying the logos of sports betting and casino sites. Sponsorship-related pictures were included in roughly 22% to 50% of the programmes’ pages, warn researchers from the Universities of Anglia Ruskin, East London, and Warwick.
According to these experts, more troubling is the fact that gambling marketing was prominently featured in programme sections aimed at minors. This was the case in as many as 39 out of 44 of the analysed programmes that reached 1.2 million football mavens. Then again, around 59% of said sections featured gambling branding without taking the trouble to show messages about responsible betting.
888 Logo Featured in a Spot-the-Differences Competition Aimed at Young Fans of Birmingham City
In one particular instance, the logo of the London-listed online gaming company 888 Holdings was included in a competition for identifying the differences between similar photos that targeted the underage fans of the Birmingham City Football Club.
In another example, the programme page of the Blackburn Rovers Football Club included a 12-year-old individual who wore a T-shirt with the logo of gambling operator 32Red.
When contacted for comment, a spokesperson of the Birmingham football club explained that said example dated back to over a year ago and was definitely not indicative of the club’s policies. However, the club is no longer sponsored by the gambling operator, the spokesperson said.
According to the Operations Director of the Young Gamblers Education Trust (YGAM), Kev Clelland, such marketing content was often featured during sessions aimed at young Brits. Mr Clelland even cited his 10-year-old son as an example, explaining he once saw the child draw a picture of a football game which included the logo of a popular gambling company.
As Casino Guardian already reported, the biggest gambling operators on British soil recently agreed voluntarily on a whistle-to-whistle ban on advertising their products on television. Under this agreement, betting-related ads will not be shown during a timeframe that starts five minutes before sporting events’ beginning and ends five minutes after the matches are over.
Gambling Branding Exposure Is Still Prevalent Through Other Channels
Despite this change, gambling branding remains widespread because it can be seen on football T-shirts as well as during footballer interviews conducted after the matches end. The recent appearance of footballer Wayne Rooney sporting a No 32 shirt also sparked a wave of criticism. The Labour Party went as far as to threaten to altogether ban the bookmakers from shirt sponsorships.
One of the researchers involved in the study, the University of East London’s Dr Steve Sharman, stressed that despite the efforts invested into reducing television gambling advertisements, sports fans still suffer from significant exposure to such content but through different channels. Gambling marketing is gradually becoming the norm, with 78% of the young Brits thinking that betting is actually a normal part of sports.
Recovering betting addict James Grimes also spoke on the matter. Mr Grimes is the initiator of the Big Step campaign that aimed at helping the Gambling with Lives charity, which insisted on football clubs reviewing their sponsorship policies.
According to him, the figures from the study are more than disconcerting and only demonstrate the irresponsibility of the football industry and the gambling companies that sponsor it. They fail to exercise adequate protection of young Brits from gambling-related harms, Mr Grimes said. He insisted that football clubs should re-evaluate their relationship with betting companies and start offering programmes that are free of gambling branding.
- Author
Daniel Williams
