Problem Gambling

England: Top Two Divisions Professional Football Clubs Sponsored by Betting Firms Rise

Posted by Maven Porter on in Blog, Local, News, UK Today / 0 Comment

The upcoming football season will see almost 60% of soccer teams in England’s top two divisions engage in sport gambling-related advertising. In a report that was recently released, 17 out of 24 teams in the Champions League and 9 of the 20 teams in the Premier League will be sponsored by gambling companies.

 

Following the report, problem gambling experts have termed the relationship between betting and sports as disturbing and worrying. The United Kingdom has recognized the detrimental effects of problem gambling and gone ahead to enact measures that will deter gambling-related advertising. However, authorities have remained silent sports sponsorship and the effects it can have on betting.

 

According to a report that was recently published by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission, 430,000 people are classified as problem gamblers while another two million are at risk of becoming problem gamblers. Considering that the country has 65 million people, problem gambling is one of the country’s major challenges as it has affected a large proportion of the people.

 

The Gambling Commission also found out that 370,000 children of between ages 11 and 16 gamble at least once in a week. 25,000 of these children are problem gamblers.

 

As the sponsorship of professional football by betting firms increases, Sky Bet which is the gambling entity of Sky Betting & Gaming has continued to sponsor three of the English Football League (EFL) divisions. In addition, it has a huge presence in the Championship League. Its domination in sponsorship of England’s professional football and the effects it is having on football fans has remained a concern to the gambling addiction charities in the UK.

 

Britain’s online gambling industry is one of the most liberal and largest in the world. Last year, it generated a record £14 billion in revenue. Sponsoring professional football is one of the gambling firms’ strategies for increasing revenue.

 

Gambling experts have raised over the issue indicating that the relationship between gambling and professional sports was getting out of control. While commenting on the situation, Gambling Watch UK’s representative Professor Jim Orford said that the nation was in a worrying state. He indicated that there was evidence that gambling was becoming “normalized” in the country.

 

According to him, young people are the most affected and are increasingly developing a perception that “betting is part and parcel of following and supporting one’s favorite sports or team.”

 

Professor Orford expressed concern that free-to-play social media gambling is becoming popular among young people as players are encouraged to purchase virtual goods as part of their betting experience. Football has remained the most popular spectator sport in the UK over the years. As a result, more families are now attending matches every week or watching them from their homes. The increasing entry of betting firms in the professional football industry has led more gambling advertisements in each game.

 

Marc Etches, CEO at GambleAware commented that the society is having a generation of fans that believe for them to enjoy a football game they must place a bed. “Watching football and having a bet is becoming normalized but we’re not talking about it,” he said.

 

The EFL opined that sponsorship by gambling firms made a significant contribution to realizing financial stability in professional football. It, however, added that it is working with betting firms to ensure a “socially responsible” relationship between professional football and gambling is created.

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UK Betting Firms Under Probe Following the World Cup Fallout

Posted by Craig Gustling on in Blog, Local, News, UK Today / 2 Comments

During the just-concluded 2018 FIFA World Cup, many people and households complained about being bombarded with betting and gambling adverts. Much of the complaints have concerned the intrusive nature of those adverts.

 

world cupMany have claimed that the adverts ate a few of their live matches. A number of the complaints have concerned the urgent manner in which the advertisers have wanted their target audience to bet. In light of this, a whopping 115 have forwarded their complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.

 

An independent study by the Guardian deduced that on average, UK viewers were exposed to around 90 minutes of betting adverts throughout the four-week tournament. The research also pointed out that most parents were uncomfortable with the fact that their children were exposed to such adverts.

 

This, they argued had the impact of normalizing gambling and inducing their young ones to the practice before they are old enough to do so. Lastly, there was also concern among viewers of the way in which the betting firms push their message. Most they said used pressure tactics that made them respond impulsively. There was some unanimity among the viewers that some appropriate actions be taken in response to this menace.

 

In light of these allegations, the UK advertising watchdog has instituted official investigations. The main target is the Bet365, Carol, and William Hill which has been identified as the greatest culprits. They have allegedly broken the new rules that were put in place to put a halt on problem gambling.

 

These three firms have been noted to have crossed certain boundaries. The formats they use and the messages they have used have particularly been identified and being way off the mark. These approaches are not recommended for gambling adverts as they tend to encourage problem gambling.

 

The UK advertising watchdog is currently evaluating those complaints to ascertain the grounds on which to institute formal investigations. They are particularly going to deduce whether the tactics that were used by those companies indeed violated the advertising codes of the United Kingdom.

 

The advertising watchdog is expected to follow the footsteps of its Australian counterparts in charting the way forward. In light of this, it is anticipated to recommend a variety of steps to be taken in response to the menace. It may, for instance, recommend an overhaul of the existing laws, an alteration of the mandate of the advertising watchdog, and the penalization of the at-fault betting firms.

 

The UK advertising watchdog has no jurisdiction to oversee the number of adverts which appear in the FIFA World Cup matches. This is because such matches fall outside the mandate of the rules which govern gambling companies and their adverts, especially towards small children. It is therefore interesting to see its recommendations as regards the way forward.

 

This being the case, the Advertising Standards Authority shall only be to determine whether the said betting adverts which featured live odds broke the new rules that we put in place in February. It will also seek to determine whether the firms encouraged the menace of problem gambling.

 

Farther afield, many other nations have already started taking this path. Italy, for instance, has already started putting in a legal framework to completely ban gambling adverts. Its Minister for Labour and Economic Development, Luigi Di Maio has taken the lead on the issue.

 

He noted that whereas the practice of gambling generates plenty of tax revenue to the government, its grave societal repercussions far outweigh the tax revenues. He further termed it as a disease which has to be eliminated by all means. These steps shall take effect from January 2019 despite opposition from a number of betting firms.

 

William Hill’s Stand on Problem Gambling

Posted by Craig Gustling on in Blog, Local, News, UK Today / 2 Comments

With the introduction of gambling, many people found a source of making extra cash on the games that they like. Over the years, more and more people enrolled in gambling across the world. However, the gambling industry has failed to perform its role in preventing the negative effects of gambling.

 

According to William Hill, the stakeholders in the wider gambling industry have launched a new approach to the matter to prevent more harm caused by gambling.William Hill appointed Lyndsay Wright as their first-ever director of sustainability. This gives her an additional role to her already existing roles like the one in charge of strategy and investor relations. According to Lyndsay Wright, the response to gambling-related problems is very significant for the future of the gambling industry. In addition, she stated a number of commitments the William Hill was putting in place to curb problems arising from gambling.

 

As part of the campaign to end gambling-related problems, Lyndsay Wright stated that William Hill as a company is pushing for the registration of all products across the industry. She also added that the firm is taking an active role in the push for reforms in advertising around live sports. The campaign against gambling problems is a result of repeated calls by the Gambling Commission to have the stakeholders in the gambling industry reduce the negative effects of gambling, especially on television advertising.

 

Lyndsay Wright stated that the company has been working to correct the matter for more than nine months. She added that the company is very cautious about the significant decline in people’s perception concerning both the company and the gambling industry at large within the past few years. Also, Lyndsay said that to understand the issue better and respond to it in the right way, the gambling industry needed to ask tough questions within itself and that it’s the ambition of all stakeholders in the gambling industry to ensure gambling harms nobody.

 

According to the Gambling Commission, more than 400,000 people within Britain are problem gamblers. The Commission also added that with there are over two million people who are exposed to the risk of becoming problem gamblers. Research showed that for every one who becomes a problem gambler, there are at least six people who are indirectly affected. This showed that the gambling firms have failed to attain what is expected of them and that the reputation of the gambling industry was at stake.

 

According to Wright, the issue of gambling problems is broad and requires urgent attention for the long-term success of William Hill as well as the entire gambling industry. She added that William Hill is a company that has been in existence for eighty-four years and it needs to handle gambling problems with a lot of care and in the right way for it to survive for a longer period. She added that it is the company’s desire to have the clients not only enjoy gamble but also stay gambling for a long time.

 

 

An Online Casino 32Red is Facing a £2m Fine after Violating Customer Welfare Procedures

Posted by Craig Gustling on in Blog, Local, News, UK Today / 1 Comment

The UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) filed a lawsuit against a reputable online gambling firm, 32Red after it has failed to protect its customers in what is termed as to protect a problem gambler, money laundering, and social responsibility checks. 32Red was slapped with a £2m fine penalty.

 

In gambling, customer welfare is a priority factor to consider in their operations. The Gambling Commission presented enough evidence about their case against 32Red. They mainly urged with 22 incidents that clearly could prove that the customer had gambling problems. Their proof was an investigation of the customer dealings as from November 2014 to April 2017 of a customer who had deposited £758,000.

 

Before any customer deposits any amount to a gambling firm, the firm is supposed to do money laundering, and social responsibilities check as required by the law set via the gambling commission. These checks are not only intended to stop any form of money frauds that would want to get clean via gambling channels but also would help those with gambling problems from losing all their money to gambling.

 

32Red not only accepted a deposit of £758,000 without doing the proper checks required but also offered some bonuses to encourage the customer to keep on betting more frequently with them. Despite their client having a net salary of £2,150, the client was still able to raise an average amount of £45,000 monthly. According to the 32Red company, the customer cheated claiming a net salary of £13,000 monthly of which, t was still not credible enough to accept those monthly deposits to a gambling firm by law. The customer won a seven-figure digit, but surprisingly he reinvested back to the same gambling firm of which this is an alarming case of problem gambling. 32Red failed in their obligation to take the rightful procedures by reviewing their customers’ financial status and asses the social responsibility in all of their deposits. The customer took more than a month to validate issues concerning his financial position while on the other hand, 32Red could not clearly explain on how the client had acquired that money he deposited to them since the firm failed to fulfill their money laundering procedures on their customers.

 

The £2m fine accounted for a £1.3m payment that was to go to a Gambling strategy plan that intends to tackle issues on problem gambling, a £709,046 divestment on the financial gain while the rest covered up for the investigation costs, policy improvement and risk management departments.

 

Kindred who owned 32Red accepted the penalty and pledged that all measures supposed to be done will be implemented to ensure that all customers will be enjoying gambling in a safe and secure environment where no law will be violated. Improvements and changes affecting both the processing and procedures were implemented immediately. These changes included; a review on all current customers profiles against the revised policies, a third party group that helps in anti-money laundering detection and companies in the same platform unified so that they work together toward the same goal in an organized manner.

 

Richard Watson who was the commission’s executive director said that instead of gambling firms motivating or even convincing their customers to gamble more like the case of 32Red gambling firms are expected to be limiting the amount their customers are dedicating to gambling guided with the specified checks. Other gambling firms like Sky Bet, Tab-corp and William Hill found themselves in the same trap as 32Red resulting to large sums of fines as penalties for failing to prioritize customer welfare on their procedures and operations.