Well, the simple and perhaps obvious answer is yes. Football has a gambling problem that is being increasingly documented, as high profile stars become victim to gambling addictions.
Newcastle's big money signing, Sandro Tonali, is the most recent headline-hitter, after receiving a ten month ban from footballing activities for gambling back in October 2023, with Ivan Toney only returning to the game after his ban in the last few months. There is a high chance that many playing in the Premier League today are secretly gambling too, and its only a matter of time before another one hits the news.
So I thought it would be fitting to share a more deeply analytical piece I wrote last year (but have adjusted to fit the times) about why there is a problem in football, and sport more widely, with gambling. This piece looks at the continuing rise in prominence of gambling as betting companies are plastered over advertising board and rather unpleasantly placed in the middle of football shirts, as well as why players keep falling victim to it and its effects on wider society.
Anyway, hope this is interesting to some people, I certainly think its interesting and a major issue football needs to address!
*All stats and figures in this piece are accurate as of the 2022/2023 season.
There are two significant factors since the turn of the millennium that have changed the face of sports betting in the UK. Firstly, the Gambling Act of 2005, which essentially created the framework for the expansion of commercial gambling in the UK. The act transferred the authority for licensed gambling from the Magistrates Court to local authorities and introduced a requirement that all betting companies need a UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) License, which is the independent body that was set up by the act to oversee and regulate all forms of gambling. Whilst this created a more transparent and accountable gambling industry, it also removed many of the restrictions on the industry and made the acquisition of a license far easier.
The second significant factor is the ease of online betting with smartphones. It was only in the mid-1990’s that the first online sports websites began to appear, and of course not until 2005 that these were regulated in the UK. Prior to this, the main ways to partake in football gambling was either in a bookmaker or via a telephone call, meaning it was far less accessible.
Today, sports betting is readily available on smartphones and computers, providing the industry with 24-hour access to their customers, whilst also offering the possibility of remote gambling. The combination of these things has led to a surge in the industry, with the market size of gambling activities in the UK growing from an estimated £120 billion in 2013 to £150 billion in 2022, with it expected to grow a further 5.1% in 2023.
Throughout this piece, I will allude to these two factors as they suggest why football’s gambling is out of control. Football is the biggest sport for bookmakers with around 70% of the sports betting industry estimated to come from football. I will investigate whether football's gambling problem has escalated to a point of being out of control and evaluate potential solutions to address this issue.
Some of the potential solutions that will be examined include stricter regulations on advertising and sponsorship, greater oversight of online betting, and increased education and support for those who may be experiencing gambling-related problems. I'll also look at how the relationship between football and gambling has become increasingly intertwined, particularly with sponsorships and advertising where sports betting companies are extremely prominent, as well as how many players within the game have been affected by gambling and how sports betting can have detrimental consequences to wider society with financial difficulties and mental health issues often a result of indulging in football gambling.
Firstly, sponsorship of football by gambling companies has become the norm, with eight of the twenty premier league clubs having front-of-shirt gambling sponsors (in the 22/23 season). The relationship between football and gambling was first evident almost a hundred years ago when the Littlewoods company launched the first football pools, however it wasn’t until much later that gambling companies began to be sponsors, in correlation with the decline of sponsorships from alcohol and tobacco companies.
In 2002, Fulham became the first Premier League club to have a shirt sponsored by a betting company, Betfair. By the 2017/18 season, after Everton switched out Beer Chang for SportPesa, there were officially no more alcohol sponsors left in the Premier League, but instead ten gambling companies were present on shirt sponsors. With eight Premier League clubs still sponsored by gambling companies, this has not seen much fluctuation in recent years. However, a further six sides in the Championship are currently sponsored by the gambling industry, which is a stark decline from sixteen in the 2019/20 season, triggered perhaps by the government’s anticipated ban on betting sponsors in the Premier League.
The Championship, however, is expected to be initially exempt from this government ban because of the financial difficulties it might leave some clubs in, with the English Football League sponsored by SkyBet, and its removal could cost clubs £40 million a year. This demonstrates the hold that gambling has on football in the UK, and that it is perhaps so out of control that it is now hard to remove because of the financial damage it would cause.
Whilst the government proposals to ban gambling sponsorships in the top leagues of football are a move in the right direction, it will not be an easy task to sever the ties between football and gambling sponsorship, where clubs and divisions rely on the financial support from the booming gambling industry. Typically, the major footballing sides tend not to be sponsored by gambling companies, since they can usually find bigger investments from companies in other sectors, and none of the ‘big six’ Premier League clubs, and just seven of the thirty-two teams in the Champions League in the 2022/23 season, have gambling sponsors.
Head of sponsorship at Sportcal, Conrad Wiacek, explained that “Lower leagues do not have the same revenue coming in from TV and from matchday revenues, so in order to compete they need to find money wherever they can,” which in many cases is from betting brands.
Nevertheless, the gambling industry still financially supports a huge section of professional football across the world. In the Premier League, it is estimated that front-of-shirt gambling sponsors contribute at least £70 million to clubs in the league. Therefore, banning gambling sponsors in football could have catastrophic effects to smaller clubs in the Premier League and Championship, widening the gap between the powerhouse clubs and disrupting the integrity of the sport. This illustrates how the problem that football has with gambling is unlikely to disappear anytime soon, at least not without causing lasting damage to the sport, and that gambling in football is certainly out of control.
The prominent sponsorship in football leads to a high level of visibility of betting brands to audiences. An academic study in 2017 found that betting logos and branding were on-screen between 71% and 89% of Match of the Day’s runtime, a program watched by all ages and on the BBC at prime hours. This high visibility can make it seem as though gambling is an integral part of the sport. This is dangerous since studies have shown that repeated exposure to gambling-related content increases the likelihood of individuals developing a gambling problem, based off the notion that media exposure shapes behaviour.
Another study found that 46% of pathological gamblers were triggered into gambling by television, radio, and billboard advertisements in sport. This illustrates the dangers of gambling advertising and sponsorships, whereby it can cause financial havoc and mental health harm to its audience. Problem gambling is the term used to describe gambling that is adversely affecting personal, family, and vocational life, such that it is a disorder compelled by the psychologically uncontrollable urge to gamble.
A study by GambleAware found that problem gamblers now cost the UK government between £260 million and £1.2 billion a year (2016) as a result of mental health services, homelessness applications, and hospital patient care for those who attempt to take their own life. With the normalisation of gambling in sport, the audience is becoming ever more susceptible to the damaging effects of problem gambling, triggered by the overly visible advertising of betting companies and their promotions. This includes a young audience too, where young people are more likely to develop gambling issues since they look up to professional footballers as role models. Many young males feel pressured to participate in gambling since betting odds are “embedded in peer discussions” and they gamble to avoid isolation from peers.
An extraordinary statistic found that 14% of 11–16-year-olds in the UK had gambled in the past week, with roughly 55,000 children classified as problem gamblers. This demonstrates a clear lack of suitable checks and verification in order to participate in online gambling, and a stark warning that it is out of control.
Part of the thrill of a football matchday is the gambling, popularly an accumulator predicting the outcomes of multiple fixtures, and many football fans struggle to watch matches without the added excitement of a bet. A YouGov study (2020) found that 28% of UK adults who follow football had placed a bet in the previous twelve months, with 13% placing a bet at least weekly. By comparison, only 22% of Rugby Union followers had placed a bet in the previous twelve months.
Football fans are the most likely section of society to gamble, demonstrating how vulnerable they are to the potential damages, such as debt, depression, and suicide. An astonishing figure released by GambleAware (2022) is that 28% of football fans felt like they would not enjoy the 2022 World Cup without placing bets, and that the cost-of-living crisis would encourage more people to gamble in an effort to supplement their income. This clearly demonstrates that gambling in football is out of control, where people are turning to gambling as a last resort even when their finances are low.
Tragically, many fans of the game are driven so deep into debt and depression from football gambling that they take their own lives, as was the case with 32-year-old woman Kimberly Wadsworth. Her death in 2018 inspired a protest and campaign, organised by the Big Step, to end all gambling advertising in football. Gambling is so heavily promoted within the sport, that it has normalised gambling behaviour, and resulted in irresponsible gambling. There is little doubt that without either a ban or severe restrictions on the promotion of gambling in football, wider society will continue to be harmed by the devastating effects of gambling.
The impact of problem gambling extends beyond football fans and the wider society into the sport itself, as it has been well documented in the news in the past that players are often drawn into the abyss of gambling. Before the beginning of the 2014-15 season, the Football Association (FA) introduced a worldwide ban on gambling, where “participants at Step 4 and above of the English league system will be banned from betting, either directly or indirectly, on any football match or competition anywhere in the world”.
Nevertheless, active players have continued to be caught gambling in recent years, most notably and recently Brentford striker Ivan Toney who was charged with 232 alleged breaches of betting rules between February 2017 and January 2021. Toney faced a lengthy ban from the game.
He is not the first English footballer to have been charged since the FA ban was introduced in 2014, when now-Newcastle right back Kieran Trippier was charged in 2020 with sharing inside knowledge about his proposed transfer to Atletico Madrid and banned from playing for ten weeks. Similarly, former England striker Daniel Sturridge was banned for four months for a similar offence. This is a concern for clubs, who have lost key players as a result of gambling, facing negative publicity, and losing invested money in the player’s development.
Many have since called for a ban to betting on transfer activity, with players’ careers at risk simply for oversharing to family and friends details of a potential transfer. There are many high-profile cases of former players who have become addicted to gambling. It is hardly surprising, given that for their entire playing career, they are surrounded by the advertising, sponsorship, and culture of sports betting, that once they retire, they turn to it as a way to recapture the thrill of the sport they used to play.
Former Chelsea striker Eidur Gudjohnson fell victim to a gambling addiction and explained in 2009 that gambling gave him a rush similar to that of scoring a goal. Many players have spoken about how gambling addictions have led to debt, depression, and a tarnished career.
Paul Merson, the former Arsenal player, and current Sky Sports pundit, has been particularly vocal about his battles with the addiction, speaking about the issues of gambling and how it is out of control in football. His BBC documentary, Paul Merson: Football Gambling and Me was poignant in explaining the damaging effects to various footballers, their families, and their careers. It highlighted the culture within the game where, particularly before the days of online gambling, groups of players would spend their spare time in a bookmaker, encouraging the younger players who are trying to fit in with new surroundings to participate. This demonstrates one of the primary issues, whereby the culture of gambling is passed down through generations of football clubs, exacerbated by the prominent advertisement and sponsorship that surrounds them in their place of work. The damage to players’ careers and livelihoods clearly shows that gambling in football is out of control.
In conclusion, it is clear that football does have a gambling problem that is out of control. The accessibility of online gambling and prominence of sponsorships and advertisements in the sport mean that the industry continues to expand. The idea of gambling in football has become normalised, such that there are an increasing number of victims struggling with the damaging effects of problem gambling.
Gambling in football is a gateway to casinos, and other forms of betting, such that it is critical there are actions taken to attempt to sever the ties between football and gambling. There are some potential solutions that could rein in football’s gambling problem. Firstly, as mentioned earlier, the government is proposing a ban on gambling sponsorships in the top division, a measure that would reduce the visibility of gambling, hopefully decreasing the likelihood of fans or players either becoming involved in gambling in the first place or developing a further addiction.
Furthermore, better checks and verification should be required when signing up for remote gambling sites, either to restrict known problem gamblers, or prevent children from accessing the sites. Gambling companies should be encouraged to promote responsible gambling and provide resources for individuals who may be experiencing gambling-related problems. This could include providing information on setting limits, self-exclusion, and help-seeking resources. Nevertheless, until some of these potential solutions are acted upon by authorities, betting companies or the UKGC, gambling in football will continue to wreak havoc on player welfare and the wider society.
If you've made it this far and actually read the whole thing, then wow, fair enough.
If you are reading this because you scrolled straight to the bottom, then you're probably in the majority and I am not surprised.
So if you are looking for a take away from the whole thing then it's this: Gambling is bad. It happens a lot and something needs to be done about it. You're welcome.
Commenti