Gambling and betting advertisements are a huge source of income for English football clubs. It is estimated that Premier League clubs get from gambling companies more than £70m each year in sponsorship and the amount “invested” into EPL is nearing £50m annually. The situation is considered critical, even though the betting sponsorship has declined their shares by almost 50% since 2019. The confirmed drop was from 32.7% to 15.2%, betting firms however still remained Premier League’s number one sponsors, actively chased by banks & finance.
The numbers are still huge, but there is one more dimension to the statistics. Did you know that out of 44 professional English clubs, 26 have a contract with a betting or gambling partner? The king of the charts is the Championship, where 17 out of 24 (according to the news) Championship clubs were in 2019 sponsored by bookmakers. This basically means that almost 60% of the world’s best players have a logo of gambling operator while training or during the game.
The moment when fans said “enough”
It almost feels like betting and football go together like a married couple. Sports merchandise, sports venues, sporting competitions, Premier League news… Basically anywhere you look there is a bookmaker promoting their services. It is impossible to watch a football game without being exposed to betting advertisements.
In a survey carried out in 2020, over 30% of fans did not buy and will not buy the club’s jersey because of the betting operators logo. Surprising might be another part of the survey, since around 45 percent of fans did not have any problems with betting logos on the club’s jersey. This however means that the club lost those 30+ percent and with that a significant amount of money.
When a reporter asked Jürgen Klopp about the biggest difference he sees between English and German fans, without hesitating and with a bit of sarcasm, Klopp responded “English fans bet much more”. Has the difference anything to do with the mentioned ”football – betting” marriage? For sure, since advertising has a huge impact on consumers behaviour, but is it really so critical? There are always 2 sides of the coin. If betting sponsorship would be banned, all the Premier League teams would find replacement in no time but the teams in lower competitions repeatedly claim that enforcing this would most likely drive them into financial problems and potentially get them stuck where they are.
There is no question that great players cost money, and if they don’t get it, they will get it elsewhere. Betting and the bookmakers are a great source of these funds and in many cases the only one.
The moral of the story
Advertisements are annoying, there is no question about it. No matter what you do, you always get exposed to it. Radio, newspapers, tv, billboards, websites… Wherever you look, you get smashed with ads. So why are betting advertisements so different? It can cause a huge amount of damage, there is no question about it. But is banning betting ads the right way to go? Should we all really take full responsibility for one’s behaviour?
Now let’s forget about protecting the vulnerables. I am a grown man and now I decided to have a drink before I drive home. Is the existence of alcohol to be blamed? Is alcohol consumption to be banned? Who is responsible? In this case I believe, over 90% of you would put the blame on the person. So let’s go back to betting ads. I am a grown man. I decided to place a bet and lost. Did I decide because of my endless trust in the end result and became blind and greedy? Who is to be blamed? Is this example really so much different from the one with alcohol?
Impulsive behaviour based on emotions instead of the mathematical football predictions or any other brain-power is to be blamed. Let’s keep the responsibility for our actions on our shoulders. And this leads us back to the original question. Why are betting advertisements so different? Would you go out roaring about kitchen accessories ads if you were following any cooking show on a daily basis? Maybe, but in this case you would really be able to use the argument “bad, bad kitchen accessories”. So let’s just suck up yet another annoyment, protect the vulnerables and take responsibility for what we do.
Ok, but what is going to happen?
The turbulence in the betting market regulations through Europe has gone wild since 2015. Gone are those Eldorado days till about 2013 and many of us still remember. You could easily lose a million and nobody cared. Kids and vulnerables were “allowed” to gamble and bet with the majority of “Maltese” or “Curacao” operators and the market was screaming for regulation.
Now we have it. UK, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Italy, Greece… basically the whole Europe is regulating their betting an gambling market and with that players get much better protection. But there are 2 countries that stand out when it comes to regulation. The regulations in Sweden and the UK have gone out of the roof. The 2 countries became a symbol of over-regulation with an easy-to-spot tendency of destroying the market. There are dozens of operators who have already left those markets.
In the UK, there is less and less space for business with each new gambling act released at least twice a year. We expect the logos on Premier League jerseys to be banned or limited and with new restrictions will be betting no more number one sponsor of English football in no time. Am I judging? No! Just saying.
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