GambleAware, the leading charity organisation battling gambling-related harm, has unveiled a new financial analysis focused on gambling companies’ marketing spending.
The report has been issued by Regulus Partners, a popular gambling industry specialists. According to the data provided by the financial analysts, marketing spending of gambling operators has increased by 56% since 2014, reaching £1.5 billion. The revelations come at a time when gambling and betting companies have been under fire over their extensive advertising which, according to their opponents, often targets under-aged and vulnerable individuals.
The financial report revealed that most marketing activity of gambling operators is currently happening online, with companies’ online marketing spending is five times larger than the investments made by them on TV advertising. Apart from that, the report further provided information about the areas in which gambling operators spent the most money on marketing in 2017.
As mentioned above, the largest costs made gambling companies in terms of advertising were the direct online marketing ones, as they amounted to 48% of total gambling marketing expenditures, or £747 million. Advertising through so-called marketing affiliates represented 19% of the companies’ total expenditure, or £301 million. Spending on TV gambling advertising accounted to £234 million, or 15% of the total costs made by gambling operators as part of their advertising strategies. A total of £149 million was spent on social media advertising, while sponsorship expenditures doubled the amount invested by operators back in 2014 and reached £60 million.
Gambling Operators Under Fire over Extensive TV Advertising
About 80% of all gambling marketing spend is now taken online. As Casino Guardian has previously reported, gambling operators in the UK have faced a lot of criticism for the amount of advertising used by them on TV. Now, it has become clear that as serious it may look, TV advertising of casinos, bookmakers and bingo websites is not even remotely used as much as promoting gambling on the Internet.
For some time, gambling companies have been vastly criticised, as anti-gambling campaigners have blamed them for extensive advertising at the time of live sports events aired on TV. According to gambling opponents, such scale of gambling advertising could be extremely dangerous for children and more vulnerable individuals, as it could make gambling look like a normal everyday or risk-free activity.
You can read Neil McArthur's keynote speech on our website https://t.co/5o3HTLOcx4 #GCRS2018 pic.twitter.com/9jDMYcvA3w
— Gambling Commission (@GamRegGB) November 8, 2018
About a couple of weeks ago, the Chief Executive Officer of the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) Neil McArthur warned gambling operators that their advertising is being dangerous to under-aged individuals, by putting them at risk of becoming gambling addicts. Mr. McArthur further explained that it was very challenging for gambling regulators to deal with the dangerous effects of problem gambling among young people and called for the companies to be more responsible to their customers.
Regulus Partners, the analysis firm which has provided GambleAware with the report, have revealed that detailed marketing expenditure is confidential but they have used similar techniques to generate credible estimates for the gambling industry’s marketing spending.
- Author
Olivia Cole
