Football clubs have a very wide reach and a unique impression on adult audiences. Therefore, they provide an ample avenue for encouraging healthier gambling practices. Football clubs and gambling companies have long worked to establish a sensible and socially responsible approach to gambling.
Football clubs are now coming to the forefront with advertisements of several responsible gambling messages such as GamStop through their shirts or jerseys. Betting clubs have struck shirt sponsorship deals with Premier Football teams which have directly contributed to the gambling awareness campaign. Though, the deal remains very controversial in UK jurisdiction. Need to be mentioned that some punters are still joining non GamStop football sites even while being self-excluded. However, it is evident that Responsible gambling messages have become an important tool to enforce safer gambling standards and help gambling addicts from all across the world to limit their play within the healthy spectrum.
The initiative
Football clubs in partnership with gambling companies have proposed to remove the logos of their sponsors and substitute them with messages promoting safer gambling measures. For instance, the Motherwell football club, and others such as Macclesfield Town club, Huddersfield Town club, and Newport County club -all came to an agreement with Paddy Power sponsor to remove the betting clubs’ logos from football kits and in their place, use the safer gambling messages.
The 32Red Shirt Sponsorship Deal
The one that received widespread popularity is the 32Red sponsorship deal, a Gibraltar-based gambling company.
During the 2019-20 season, the Kindred group made a commercial tie-up with the 32Red company and announced that they are going to display a safer gambling logo on their football jerseys. Kindred hopes to do program advertising, and in-stadia advertising which will contribute to an increase in the level of responsible gambling messaging through social media and emails.
The football jerseys of the Scottish Premiership giants and the English Football League Championship clubs such as Derby County, Middlesbrough, Leeds United, and Preston North End will also contain the responsible gambling logos. Each of the football clubs possesses its own distinguished safer gambling message. The football kit of Leeds will show “Keep Gambling Fun”. The football kit of Derby will feature “Play Responsibly”. Middlesbrough’s jerseys will have “Set Deposit Limits” and on Preston shirts, it will display – “Never Chase Losses”.
Supporting Safer Gambling Week
Since the Brits are very keen on sports it becomes a necessity to help problem gamblers. Therefore, most football clubs in the UK have not stopped spreading gambling logos with safer messaging. They have also signed up for the Responsible Gambling Week. This campaign is held annually in November. It is now renamed “safer gambling week”. This campaign encourages online and offline businesses to promote safe gambling standards and practices for an entire week.
The Football clubs who have begun participating in this campaign, have started displaying special Safer Gambling Week messages on social media channels and at the football stadiums. The English football league is also said to have a sponsorship contract with the online bookie Sky Bet which is mainly for promoting safer gambling messages out there to the vulnerable football and gambling fans. They contribute to this campaign by printing the messages on the sleeves of the players’ football jerseys.
Criticism received by the Football Gambling Sponsorships
In spite of the clubs’ active participation in the safer gambling campaign, football shirt sponsorships have always received severe criticism with many condemning that this step is solely a strategy to improve their commercial relationship. Many are of the opinion that they encourage gambling to those who are at risk of developing harm.
As a result of these vehement criticisms, some UK organizations and administrative bodies have been strongly campaigning for a ban on football gambling sponsorships. However, gambling sponsorships are of utmost importance to football clubs because they not only help the promotion of safer gambling standards but also prove to be a very good revenue earner for both industries.
Conclusion
The sports industry has been in a close relationship with the gambling industry for decades. What this campaign has done is tap into this beneficial relationship and spread awareness through it. This campaign through football clubs has not only resulted in a strong spurt of revenue but also established a healthy gambling environment among sports lovers as well.
While Football has been a very popular sport across the globe, the betting industry that has flourished around is ever-growing and popular. However, addictions are a dire side-effect that comes along with gambling. The menace associated with problem gambling is so huge that licensing agency such as United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) has introduced self-exclusion policies such as Gamstop, Gamban, Gamcare, where punters can forcefully exclude themselves from gambling for periods of weeks and months.