Football and gambling by David Conn

Revealed: the ‘dire consequences’ of football’s relationship with gambling

• Some young men cannot watch games without multiple bets

• ‘Gambling is the worst addiction,’ major new study is told

Dire: Terrible, awful, appalling, dreadful

Gambling: Betting, gaming, punting, wagering. Note: don’t confuse with gambol (jumping)

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/jan/10/football-gambling-dire-consequences-young-men-bet-new-study

Exclusive by David Conn

Thu 10 Jan 2019 14.02 GMT

The relentless involvement of betting companies in football has drawn a generation of young men into strongly associating their support for the game with gambling, leading to “dire consequences” for many, a major new study has found.

Relentless: Unremitting, sustained, punishing, persistent  

Major: Important, vital, critical, significant 

The explosion in marketing and sponsorship since the last Labour government deregulated gambling in 2005, combined with the ease of online betting via smartphones, has resulted in the “gamblification” of watching football, according to the research conducted by Dr Darragh McGee of the University of Bath.

McGee spent two years working closely with two groups of football supporters aged 18-35 in Bristol and Derry, recording their gambling habits in depth, in a research project funded by the British Academy. His findings, shared exclusively with the Guardian, include some of the young men telling him they can no longer watch a football match unless they have multiple bets on it; commonly they have up to 25 accounts registered with online gambling companies, and their football conversations with mates are all about betting, rather than the game itself.

Participants said the gambling companies’ marketing is extremely effective, particularly the offers of “free” bets, and that their losses did not feel like real money because they are placed so casually on a phone and no longer involve going to a bookmaker’s shop. One told McGee that the “buzz” of gambling is “up there with sex and drugs and rock and roll”, saying: “And I think because of that, gambling is the worst addiction of the lot.”

That participant, a 31-year-old father of two in Derry, ultimately disclosed to McGee that he had turned to drug dealing for a period to try to recoup money saved for a family holiday, which he had lost gambling.

Disclosed: Make known, tell, reveal, publish

Recoup: Regain, recover, get back, make good

The participant told McGee he had 40 accounts with online betting companies, and cannot watch matches, except the odd Premier League game, without betting on them, including in-play bets on the number of corners, throw-ins or yellow cards. He said he was “in debt to my eyeballs” on high-interest payday loans taken out to cover gambling losses, and his credit was “blacklisted to the max”.

In debt to my eyeballs: You use up to the eyeballs to emphasize that someone is in an undesirable state to a very great degree: He is out of a job and up to his eyeballs in debt.

To the max: If you do something to the max, you do it to the greatest degree possible.

He said that gambling “took over my life for a while” and he has deep regrets about having neglected his baby daughter, because he would “sit on the laptop, continuous gambling for the day” when looking after her. He told McGee that he had lost two friends to suicide, one directly attributed to gambling debts. Derry, like other areas of Northern Ireland, has some of the highest suicide rates in Britain.

Took over: Get control of something

Regrets: If you regret something that you have done, you wish that you had not done it.

As McGee came to know the groups, he found that the intensity of the new online gambling culture in football has had catastrophic impacts on many of the participants. “Far from being the knowledge-based, risk-free activity it is marketed as, the profound appeal of online sports gambling has had dire consequences for many young men,” McGee has concluded, in research which is complete and due to be published academically next year.

Appeal: Attraction, charm, fascination, charisma  

“The study documented the unfolding stories of several young men whose everyday lives are punctuated by deepening social and financial precarity, high-interest payday loans and bank debt, mortgage defaults, family breakdown, and mental health struggles.

Unfolding stories: If a story unfolds or if someone unfolds it, it is told to someone else.

“In particular, for young men who find themselves deprived of viable routes to employment opportunities, gambling promises an alternative route to wealth, social capital and masculine affirmation, yet most end up ensnared in a cycle of indebtedness.”

Ensnared: If an animal is ensnared, it is caught in a trap.

Indebtedness: The state of being indebted

McGee shared his findings with the Guardian after the major online betting companies represented by the Remote Gambling Association (RGA) announced they would voluntarily stop “whistle-to-whistle” television advertising during the broadcasting of live sport, except for horse racing. That measure was proposed by the Labour party as part of a reform package including a 1% levy – 10 times the current 0.1% levy – to fund research and treatment for gambling addiction.

Whistle-to-whistle: A whistle is a loud sound produced by air or steam being forced through a small opening, or by something moving quickly through the air. If I'm right, a whistle whistle is an ad with a distinctive sound to prevent the audience from starting to publish betting ads. They speak of transmitting a "prohibition of whistle to whistle".

Levy: A levy is a sum of money that you have to pay, for example as a tax to the government. Impose, charge, tax, collect. Word origin of 'levy' C15: from Old French levée a raising, from lever, from Latin levāre to raise.

McGee welcomes that proposed whistle-to-whistle advertising ban as “a step in the right direction” but said: “A generation of young people already view gambling as a normalised part of sport. Turning the tide will require stronger state regulation and a genuine commitment to redistributing a greater slice of the losses incurred by British gamblers to education and treatment for problem gambling. Educating the next generation about the dangers will be key.”

Turn the tide: To reverse the general course of events

Commitment: Commitment is a strong belief in an idea or system. dedication, loyalty, devotion, adherence  

Losses: Plural of lose

The betting companies have such huge “visibility” via ubiquitous sport sponsorship, marketing and advertising, and have had a free hand for so long, that the voluntary ban is unlikely to limit the amounts being gambled, he said. The participants in his research said that once they were signed up to betting accounts and apps, the constant prompts during matches, and marketing offers, particularly offers of “free” or matched bets, were powerful encouragements to gamble.

Free hand: Unrestricted freedom to act (esp in the phrase give (someone) a free hand)
Prompt: A message on a video screen that requests the operator to enter information or a command

A total of £14.4bn was lost by people betting in the UK from April 2017 to March 2018, according to official figures produced by the Gambling Commission, an increase from £13.8bn the previous year. Of that total, £5.3bn was lost gambling online, a 12.8% increase on the previous year.

Online betting companies have targeted football in an industrialised way, paying for sponsorship and advertising, including in football-related media – the Guardian accepts such advertising – at a time when revenues from other advertisers are diminishing. This season, nine out of the 20 Premier League clubs have a gambling company as their main shirt sponsor, and as many as 17 out of the 24 Championship clubs. SkyBet sponsors the Football League itself and its three divisions, and is promoted by Sky during sports TV coverage.

Major betting companies based in the UK, offshore and in overseas countries, particularly Asia, also sponsor billboards around pitches, which are prominent during broadcasts. Research by Goldsmiths University last year found that gambling logos or branding were on screen for between 71% and 89% of Match of the Day programmes, even though the BBC does not carry actual advertising.

Billboard: Advertisement

Pitch: To try to sell using persuasive talk or advertising (llençament, lanzamiento)

Prominent: Important

McGee’s work with younger fans has led him to conclude that the marketing has “hooked” a generation into “an accelerated sports culture in which the casual staking of money is an essential accompaniment to watching the game”. He says that “a new generation of sports fans view gambling as vital to their enjoyment of sport”.

Staking: The stakes involved in a contest or a risky action are the things that can be gained or lost.

One of the participants, a 27-year-old living in Derry, told him: “As much as I enjoy it, gambling has ruined sport now, because you can’t watch it without thinking: ‘I should put a fiver on first goal.’ You can’t just enjoy it for what it is. It has completely taken over. All my mates can’t watch it without having a bet any more. It has ruined sport.

Fiver: 5 £ or 5 $.

“When I think back to when I was younger, I couldn’t wait to get home from school to see Man United playing in the Champions League on a Tuesday. It was the highlight of your week. I’d spend all day thinking about the game, and come 7pm I’d be sat glued to the TV waiting for the Champions League music to come on.

“Now, I’m sat there thinking about what I should be betting on, or asking the boys who the smart money’s on tonight. At times, I end up betting against United just to make it interesting! I can’t remember the last time that I just watched the game like a real fan, without having a bet on it.”

Smart money’s: Money bet or invested by experienced gamblers or investors, esp with inside information

About Spain 2018-2019

Por ahora, ya iniciada la competición, de los 20 equipos de la Liga Santander sólo se ha quedado al margen de un patrocinio relacionado con las apuestas deportivas la Real Sociedad, un equipo que en todo caso tuvo a Kirolbet como patrocinador durante las dos últimas temporadas y este verano ha estado negociando con Betway.  La camiseta ya no es imprescindible: En un mundo donde las redes sociales lo son todo y la visibilidad de la competición se mide también en presencia en internet y no sólo en televisión, el espacio publicitario que suele ser el más destacado en los patrocinios principales no se incluye en la mayoría de los acuerdos que hemos señalado en la primera parte del artículo. Los 10 clubs a los que patrocina bet365 no cuentan con la visibilidad del logo del operador en sus equipaciones, tampoco cuenta con ello bwin en el Valencia o Atlético de Madrid, ni Codere Apuestas o Betfair en sus acuerdos con Real Madrid, Sevilla y FC Barcelona respectivamente. En el caso de la Liga Santander, sólo encontramos a cuatro equipos que cuentan con el logo de un operador de apuestas deportivas en su camiseta como publicidad principal de su equipación: ·         Levante (Betway) ·         Leganes (Betway) ·         Alavés (BetWay) ·         Girona (Marathon Bet) En la Premier League, ésto no es así. Y de sus 20 equipos, 16 cuentan con patrocinios de casas de apuestas deportivas y de ellos, más de la mitad (9) cuentan con la camiseta como principal espacio publicitario en la parte frontal y dos de ellos en una de las mangas http://www.infoplay.info/2018-08-22/asi-se-han-posicionado-las-casas-de-apuestas-en-la-liga-santander/6108/noticia/