Podcast

The speaker discusses the issue of gambling ads in the Premier League and questions why the government has relied on voluntary solutions instead of taking action. They argue that the promotion of gambling in football is creating conditions where players are more likely to gamble, potentially leading to addiction and conflicts of interest. The speaker also highlights the need for evidence-based research and policies to reduce harm in the gambling industry. They criticize the current state of promotion and sponsorship in football, particularly the use of white label arrangements to bypass advertising restrictions in Asian markets. The speaker suggests that making the industry safer should be a priority before considering the extent of its promotion. Yeah, so I think this is an interesting question, right? So why did the government not take action on on Gambling ads, you know in the white in the review. Why have they relied on voluntary? Solution from the Premier League, which is not going far enough So there'll be nothing for the better than Gaming Council and the UK gambling industry to to lose from banning white labels and Actually made this point to them. I said, well, why didn't you? Why didn't you just campaign for that? Why didn't you say that in the review? You want to end white label arrangement? You want proper due diligence for licensees? You don't want to you know, all these brands just kind of flooding Britain and undermining the Reputation of the industry here, right? Which is what it's doing. People are getting fed up. Persuasion manipulation and domination It's the hobby which turns into necessity a unique addiction That one that an individual hopes will believe can be escaped by further participation Gambling is seen as an extension of immersion in sport. We really sits very much as a central figure in the landscape of the beautiful game It's an essential player as a sponsor. The player itself is essential for the sponsor But a player must not partake in what they sponsor like if you're an athlete, you're not going to drink or you know do drugs or You know, you know, you're not even going to really eat sort of Badly, you know, everything's very very controlled now. Lots of footballers now have their own chefs everything is controlled down to the nth degree and Gambling is the thing that they they say believe they could do and it wouldn't affect their performance on the pitch And it's the test the one vice that's left And it's why a lot of footballers actually also play like online online video games and play fortnight and FIFA because there's just no there's no release there's no release from like the discipline of their of their lifestyles and and when you have that combined with all that, you know that belief that gambling isn't going to affect that performance on the pitch combined with Over promotion of gambling in the sport which they are themselves a part of you're creating the conditions where It's sort of inevitable. I think that people Footballers will gamble and if footballers gamble on things on a website online Which Or things that they are theoretically permitted to gamble on like slots and casino products and on that same website is Betting on football you are asking for trouble. It might be here, right because it's just it's there and If you start to get addicted to gambling as a footballer You're going to start thinking well, I might know a bit more about football So I'll try and I'll try and chase that by betting on football or and then you're not It's not a huge leap then to start them betting on games or teams that you're affiliated with Like I can very very easily see how that dissent occurs and look at the case of Ivan Tony and the quantity of bets that he was placing that he was addicted to gambling and I think that they've been They've created a problem for themselves the the FA because I think there's so many examples of this where Now what they've done is they've created environment where if any footballer wants to come forward if they've got a problem They're putting their career on the line So I really think that the FA and the Premier League have to create the the conditions where If they want to promote gambling which I think to be honest I think is a mistake the level of to which gambling is promoted in the sport Which is the inextricable link between football betting and online betting in particular, which is relentless Hypocrisy Those are the words of Nat Zarb Cousin He's the director of clean up gambling a campaign looking to reformulate and review the current gambling act And also the co-founder of Gamband an online platform which facilitates removing the temptation Convenience of online gambling platforms from the tick fingertips with a modern filter, which is notoriously thorough and effective It's gained support of many who have suffered of issues in the past Including one Paul Mersenne, the former Arsenal legend and current pundit Who also led the talk ban stop campaign partnership between three organizations to help people stop and avoid addiction One would think that initiatives like these would be some sort of priority even for the current football industry Where multiple football players high profile footballing players Have been the ones who have been the ones who have been the ones who have been the ones who have Focal and forced to have been vocal in all honesty about their issues In truth i've just spoken about two initiatives with high reach importance and impact delimiting where advertising can be placed Two initiatives which make a very big difference to many Not mere transferring of a sponsor from chest to arm while continuing Just to permit constant insistence on billboards Advertising boards stadium banners training and pre-match gear and general club sponsors to gain the same notoriety Another thing that really caught my eye um Is you're involved also in the campaign clean up gambling? Yeah The goals of clean up gambling or to be more specific the priorities for the gambling act review Um i've taken this directly from the website gambling policy should be evidence-based gambling industry Has funded research through gamble aware via voluntary levy Funding that can be withdrawn at any time and this has enabled the gambling industry to steer the policy away Or the agenda away from looking at the stake or the speed of harmful gambling products And the majority of online gambling profits come from people experiencing harm So reducing harm is not actually in the commercial interest of the gambling industry But they seem to be the ones that are controlling the research I know I looked at that And I was like it almost seems dystopian when we put it in those terms like So those who are trying to maximize their profits essentially are leading the research Into the policies that were would essentially limit themselves Yeah, so Thankfully we were successful campaigning for the levy And that will be that's going through at the moment. So that'll be administered very soon So this will mean that in future policy there'll be lots more evidence that government can make policy on the basis of so Uh, one of the reasons they gave for not doing anything about advertising was they couldn't there wasn't enough evidence of a link between advertising and harm now that that doesn't that's not logical because the gambling industry is Deriving the majority of its profits from harm. So if you're promoting a sector that is dependent on that commercial model, of course, it leads to harm because They wouldn't advertise if we didn't create new customers and those customers are uh, the ones that are engaged the highly engaged are going to be addicted or at risk, so So I I didn't Buy that but in any case there'll be mechanisms now to get to get proper research going forward um, so yeah, so that's positive and then we we've we've got the other commitments as well on there so the the Rich reducing or limiting the stake on online slots that's being decided at the moment Um the affordability checks that's happening So lots of these things will make the industry safer and then the question for government In that context is to what extent is it reasonable to promote that industry and I and my argument is kind of it's a little bit I don't know It's a it's a bit nuanced it If I think if you make the industry safe, but then the promotion of it is less of an issue than it currently is Because I think at the moment the way the industry operates is not It's not really something you should be promoting for mass consumption The old gambling have genuine solutions. They are looking for genuine solutions to tackle the issue at its heart Now when we're talking about Gambling industry we're talking about a very diluted market as is the podcasting industry where unimportant filler lovable introductions bit of fun and weak arguments just to fill the time and to show the other side are prevalent But in this case we are talking about the well-being of many we're talking about morality and integrity when we touch on gambling industry So we're going to cut all of that Now switching gambling ads from shirt fronts and shirt sleeves does absolutely nothing to curb the betting problem in football Now, why is the priority merely limiting an area sponsorship? And the other thing I think is quite tangential, but it's relevant is the the fact that Lots of the companies the betting companies that sponsor in the Premier League are not actually trying to appeal to the Premier League So try sorry, they're not actually trying to appeal to a British audience. They're trying to appeal to an audience in Asia so lots of the gambling sponsors, you'll notice some of them even have Chinese writing on the front and These are but this is because in China gambling is illegal and online gambling is illegal and advertising gambling is illegal So what they'll do is they'll sponsor Premier League team they'll show the Premier League in China and And Chinese audience will see that on the shirt and that's a way of bypassing advertising restrictions in Asian markets so so this is if the government And the way that these gambling companies with the Asia facing do this is through something called a white label arrangement where they basically Pay a license fee to an existing license holder That allows them access to the British market in order to advertise just so they can appeal to a market outside of Britain, so it's very very convoluted, but If the government was to say right, we're going to end this white label system then overnight the number of betting sponsors in In the Premier League would it would have fallen off a cliff? So I think that that's the thing that they missed out on in the recent gambling app review They should have done that would have reduced the advertising and you might say well What's the issue with with that, you know, it's not affecting anyone here Personally I think that we have a responsibility internationally, but you might say well, what's the what's the issue with that? What has it affecting people in Britain? And I think the reason is the way it's affecting people in Britain is You still have the word bet and casino and all the gambling affiliated language on the shirt Which is creating an association in the minds of children Growing up watching football that this is part of enjoying the game and part of supporting your team You know the record number of 18 year old to down it downloading gambling apps every year So that and signing up for gambling accounts. So the idea is not having an effect on young people growing up I think it's not true. I think it definitely is and we're just starting to see the consequence of it now Which is an insignificant limitation to sidestep One that Asian based companies have clearly cracked Safeguarding is just not a priority against an integral cog cementing financial superiority in an era of hegemony for the Premier League Gambling sponsors account for one in every six football deals. That's fifteen point four percent and one in every eleven total sponsorship deals according to a study conducted by K2 Now outcry from fan groups and incoming ban on shirts front sponsors Which will only come into full effect from the 2026 27 Premier League season have not acted as a deterrent rather last-minute money grab attempt while you can still permit your immorality During a 12-13 season 25% of the teams which were five Had a gambling company featured on their match day shirt Joint most companies Joint most with companies offering financial services Last season eight teams featured a gambling logo on their shirt front between 1890 and 2223 there were always eight to ten gambling companies active as main shirt sponsors in the Premier League So the prevalence of gambling companies has rised over the last three decades From the 1718 season onwards the Premier League started to allow shirts leave sponsors. So the number became even higher So when you think of it only five seasons later After permitting more prevalence of gambling the Premier League has decided to take action to reduce it That would just be mentioning direct relationships when we consider traditional media coverage and social media reach the plot thickens University of Bristol in collaboration of Channel 5 last month monitored live televised coverage sports news programming sports news radio and social media over the period one past weekend in August and Among key findings laid these facts and figures a Total of almost 11,000 gambling messages were identified during the weekend across various media channels Nearly 7,000 gambling messages were recorded during the six live match broadcasts Less than a quarter included gambling harm reduction messages and only 18.7% featured age warnings leaving the majority without any There was at least one gambling ads during any commercial break on talk sport radio and 600 gambling messages during two hours of Sky Sports news Nearly 2,000 gambling ads on social media generated a total of 34 million impressions and that refers to the number of times an advert was seen There's a statistic I had here and I just look at the percentages at play and I'm like it just doesn't seem feasible if you've got An independent body doing this research According to the UK government problem gambling affects an estimated 300,000 people in the UK But supposedly in 2018 24 and a half million people gambled Now you based on 2018 HSE data and it's estimated at 0.5 of the population reached the threshold to considered Beat to be experiencing problem gambling and this proportion has remained relatively consistent since 2012 out of 24 and a half million people that percentage of 300,000 and that's all That are considered problem gambling Yeah, one. I'd like to know what they suppose Problem gambling is and to that just doesn't seem feasible because you don't have Like a platform like gamban does not have double the block websites than active users if there is an a major major Breakthrough for gambling gambling companies to become majorly successful based on The driver of the industry which is problem gambling and that is the low percentage that it is Yeah, exactly and the gambling Commission has actually looked again how we collect data for For gambling addiction and people at risk and I think the the latest estimates put it put that figure at much much higher. I think it's about 2.4 million people addicted or at risk, so You're talking about a significant portion of the population. It's incredibly difficult to estimate Problem gambling prevalence, but it's important that there's a systematic methods for collecting this data rather than What the regulator was relying on which was telephone surveys which obviously reduces a sample to people with a landline and expects people to To be honest about you know they're gambling over the phone maybe even in front of their families, so The methodology had to be reviewed. They've done that exercise the prevalence is much much higher but knowing where the harm is taking place is the key thing and And that comes down to not just prevalence data collection, but industry data collection and independent research and looking at Looking at everything everything that's happening ideally and as close to real time as possible And and that's where we've managed to move move the agenda the reform agenda. It's not something that like you can really shout from the rooftops about you know in terms of it being a really interesting story, but Making sure the regulator is doing what it's supposed to having the resources that it needs to do that and the powers that it that it requires in order to Get the data from the industry and to look at what's actually happening all of that's going to make a huge difference, and I think there's going to it's going to precipitate a Big culture change in the gambling industry. I think they're finally you know they've Finally come to terms with that after a long fight Priorities to commence a journey of impactful change have been outlined They might not make the biggest headlines at first The impact will be greater than a small financial hit in comparison after a three-year so-called adaptation phase The conclusion is clear Switching gambling ads from shirt fronts to shirt sleeves does nothing to curb the problem in football The problem remains and the route to salvation relies on more than just tokenism from the premier league Lives will be at risk Not even children are spared from this constant barrage of Advertising the facts and figures are clear People need to be protected