Gambling sponsorship ban in football

Another reason is the vile abuse given out online, because their club, player, choice, lost. Disgusting

I can get behind a sponsorship ban to some degree but suggestions of banning gambling alltogether is madness.

Just because some people lose it all you're going to punish the other millions of responsible gamblers? There needs to be more done to limit the loses of people and stop people putting their life savings into gambling.

On the flip side there are people who make money at the bookies expense, lots of people for that matter. It's got harder and harder due to the bookies limiting/closing accounts of people who win but I'd like to see that addressed too!

Okay, so here goes... I work for a gambling company.

I've read the horror stories, I've seen them on TV and my heart goes out to anyone who has suffered from gambling related harm, or knows someone who has. It's awful.

Reform is happening. The Gambling Act (agreed in 2005) is out of date, as it was enforced when people weren't able to bet on their phones. It's being reviewed this year and I believe it's going to enforce far more restrictions on gambling companies.

I can see how gambling is deeply embedded in football, and how a dependency has grown between the two. How you uncouple that is a huge challenge. But I agree, things need to change.

However — and I appreciate people's strength of feelings on this — the vast majority of people bet for the enjoyment of it, and the vast majority do play within their limits. More should (and can) be done to protect those vulnerable, and I've seen first hand the data models being used to identify and help these people.

Betting is a pastime, we've been doing it for centuries. There will always be a demand. We need to make sure we don't stop a person's free choice to bet, but when they do, bookies need to be tightly regulated so no one is harmed.

I know people whose lives have been ruined by alcohol, and yet this has a totally different perception. People are quite happy to endorse alcohol brands, wear their merchandise and drink around kids, and this is a drug that has the potential to be destructive. More work needs to be done here, too.

But you won't separate drinking from football. Like everything in life, there is a balance. Achieving it is the hardest part but to get back to the original point, betting and football needs (and is getting) better regulation.

Even though I work in the betting industry, I have no issue with Dale Vince's stance. I agree with it. It's not to the detriment of my company; it's to the benefit of people. I'd rather help my company adjust and find better ways to help people enjoy betting safely than stick a logo on a shirt or on a board at a football ground.

Quoted from Heisenberg

Ok, you call me a dinosaur and I’m not offended. But people who gamble weren’t forced into it. It’s like smokers getting NHS care for lung cancer, seriously, what did they think would happen?

Gambling ruins lives because the betting companies are the only winners. If you consider that as fact, then surely your choice to gamble is the wrong one, with only one long term outcome.

Yeah, but cigarette companies can't advertise anymore, have to be sold in plain packaging and feature very graphic warnings about the damage they do to your health. They are taxed extensively to mitigate the cost of smoking related illness to the NHS.

A decent and reputable pub or shop will not serve someone when they attempt to buy alcohol when noticeably drunk.

What do gambling companies do? I am constantly bombarded by emails from online gambling companies I've used over the years. The app I use now for my £5 Saturday football bet (and that's not every week) keeps encouraging me to bet £25 a week to get a free bet. They all advertise on TV (especially around football matches) and give the impression that betting is part of the game and is normal and even cool. It isn't.

If you have a gambling addiction how do you escape from them? It's everywhere.

I am lucky and I don't have an addictive personality. I probably spend £5 maybe 25 weeks out of 40 during the football season. Quite a few weeks are funded by previous small wins. And I've had a couple of decent wins (£250-300) that have seen a year or 2 of betting expenditure covered in one go.

The solution is simple. Ban them from advertising on Football shirts, TV, Radio (TalkSport would lose 50% of their content overnight), billboards, advertising hoardings and bus stops. The world's oldest football competition (EFL) having their name along side a betting company is an absolute disgrace.

Quoted from RichMariner

Okay, so here goes... I work for a gambling company.

I've read the horror stories, I've seen them on TV and my heart goes out to anyone who has suffered from gambling related harm, or knows someone who has. It's awful.

Reform is happening. The Gambling Act (agreed in 2005) is out of date, as it was enforced when people weren't able to bet on their phones. It's being reviewed this year and I believe it's going to enforce far more restrictions on gambling companies.

I can see how gambling is deeply embedded in football, and how a dependency has grown between the two. How you uncouple that is a huge challenge. But I agree, things need to change.

However — and I appreciate people's strength of feelings on this — the vast majority of people bet for the enjoyment of it, and the vast majority do play within their limits. More should (and can) be done to protect those vulnerable, and I've seen first hand the data models being used to identify and help these people.

Betting is a pastime, we've been doing it for centuries. There will always be a demand. We need to make sure we don't stop a person's free choice to bet, but when they do, bookies need to be tightly regulated so no one is harmed.

I know people whose lives have been ruined by alcohol, and yet this has a totally different perception. People are quite happy to endorse alcohol brands, wear their merchandise and drink around kids, and this is a drug that has the potential to be destructive. More work needs to be done here, too.

But you won't separate drinking from football. Like everything in life, there is a balance. Achieving it is the hardest part but to get back to the original point, betting and football needs (and is getting) better regulation.

Even though I work in the betting industry, I have no issue with Dale Vince's stance. I agree with it. It's not to the detriment of my company; it's to the benefit of people. I'd rather help my company adjust and find better ways to help people enjoy betting safely than stick a logo on a shirt or on a board at a football ground.

Yes, but historically you could only bet in a betting shop or at a racecourse/dog track etc...

If you're a recovering alcoholic or drug addict you won't have alcohol/drugs in your house/flat. If you wake up and are tempted you have the process of getting dressed and going somewhere to buy some booze/drugs to stop yourself from relapsing.

If you're addicted to gambling you can wake up in the morning and be online and gambling within seconds. The industry does nothing to help.

Bet365 took bets in 2019 to the value of the 50% of the entire budget of the NHS. And that's just one company albeit the market leader.

100% Agree with Vince on his stand, like or loath him you cant critisise for standing behind his beliefs and principles.

Rich Mariner says betting is a pass time. To me, it was a pass time when there were small bookies, who layed bets off to larger ones when the risk was too much. This like the old pubs use to be when someone had too much they had to go home, off licences was the other outlet for booze. Again off licences were small concerns and often an add on to the pub; meaning that if the pub landlord refused drink so did the off licence.

Then big betting concerns gradually took over the smaller shops until you have today's situation that the small bookie no longer exists. Likewise, the off licence's have nearly all gone in favour of big brother supermarkets.

Add betaware or drinkaware to their logo and it makes excessive consumption right. Legally they have done nothing wrong and morally they don't care. They may say they do care, as in lip service, but as long as the profits roll in they are not really bothered.

So what was a pass time of a bet and a pint has now been turned around into 'how much can we get out of them'. If you want proof, when was the last time somebody was refused a drink in a pub and refused to put a bet on because they had spent too much?

Quoted from GollyGTFC

Yes, but historically you could only bet in a betting shop or at a racecourse/dog track etc...

If you're a recovering alcoholic or drug addict you won't have alcohol/drugs in your house/flat. If you wake up and are tempted you have the process of getting dressed and going somewhere to buy some booze/drugs to stop yourself from relapsing.

If you're addicted to gambling you can wake up in the morning and be online and gambling within seconds. The industry does nothing to help.

Bet365 took bets in 2019 to the value of the 50% of the entire budget of the NHS. And that's just one company albeit the market leader.

I take your points completely.

By historically, I meant Peaky Blinders style. Without bookies, you'll still have people betting with each other, and none of that is regulated in any way, and it ends up with debt collectors and threats of violence and chaos, and the role of a modern bookie *should* be to make sure betting never descends like that, and that people are protected. Totally agree they need to do more. Totally.

Alcohol is a separate thing and maybe I shouldn't have mentioned it. I only did because the figures of alcohol dependency, deaths, hospitalisations, domestic abuse cases (not forgetting their links to obesity) are still incredibly high. And yet our attitude towards it is almost opposite to gambling. Most of us actively endorse it — and that's not wrong, because we enjoy it (just like people enjoy betting).

But I'm going off topic.

If you're a recovering gambling addict, you can block all access (and marketing comms) from bookies here at GamStop: [url]https://www.gamstop.co.uk[/url]

It's not perfect. I know it isn't. Every bookie should be part of GamStop. Maybe the new regulations will enforce that. That way, you can have a phone and not be able to access any betting site.

The Bet365 figure is shocking, but not surprising, and I understand that reaction. There are far more businesses out there talking bigger figures and not paying their taxes, denying our country the money it needs to fund the NHS further. Where does the discussion stop?

But yes, gambling shouldn't be so prevalent in football. By all means, let people bet on sport if they choose, protect them if they're not eligible or choose not to, don't ram it down their throats, and apply these sensibilities across other 'addictive' industries too. I'm all for it, and I want to work to make things better.

It's not about people gambling responsibly.

A lot of betting adverts prey on the vulnerable.

I've never had problems gambling myself as i hardly partake in it.

However, a friend of mine had gambling issues and he would often self-exlude himself from them, yet he'd still get text messgaes, emails and letters....

Most betting companies do not care about people like this.

You just have to look at the suicide rate for people with gambling issues.

Most people feel they cannot escape betting due to the mass amount of adverts.

Last year I got in my car turned the radio on and there was this geezer getting interviewed about lower league football finance, the EFL, player power, club ownership etc.. I listened and he made a lot of sense and it took me a good ten minutes to realise who it was and it was Dale Vince.

Though I don't like the vegan only bit or particularly FGR as a club I do think sustainability in any organisation is really important and to be honest I do have a bit of respect for Vince for standing true to his principles though they don't align with mine.

As for advertising of gambling? should be put in the same bracket as advertising of smoking in my view. If people want to do it fine but I'm not sure it should be glorified as part of a sporting experience like the media companies tend to portray it.