Sports Betting and gaming group GVC Holdings has announced that it will be removing many of its sponsorship assets for the upcoming football season today, after announcing that they will instead be donating them to GambleAware’s ‘Bet Regret’ campaign.
With the Scottish Professional Football League kicking off this weekend, the Ladbrokes logo would have previously been sat on many of the assets for all of the clubs taking part, including on the interview backdrops, static and LED boards. However, it will now be replaced by the Bet Regret campaign logo.
The unprecedented move is an attempt to encourage football fans to moderate their betting behaviour while avoiding the sinking feeling betters often experience after placing an impulsive bet – particularly when bored, chasing losses or drunk.
It isn’t just Scotland that will be seeing this donation, with a number of English clubs having GVC companies as commercial partners including Sunderland, West Bromwich Albion, Burnley, Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. There are 42 clubs in total who will be donating their sponsorship assets to GambleAware.
Sponsorship, and more specifically gambling sponsorship, has never been more prevalent in football, as it is found that in England more than half of the Premier League clubs are now sponsored by a betting firm – as are 17 of 24 Championship clubs.
The movement is targeted at an audience estimated at 2.4m young men aged 16-34 who gamble regularly on sport, and of which 87% regularly watch football. The ‘Bet Regret’ campaign is centred around raising awareness of the three risky behaviours: betting whilst bored, drunk, or chasing loses.
63% of this target audience believe that there are too many opportunities to bet nowadays; while around two million adults suffer some level of harm related to gambling, which includes 340,000 who are problem gamblers.
Marc Etches, Chief Executive Officer for GambleAware, said: “We are delighted that GVC Holdings has made this move to support the Bet Regret campaign. With the number of opportunities to bet and exposure to messages associated with gambling being so relevant in football, it’s incredibly important that football fans think twice about betting when drunk, bored or chasing losses.”
Patrick Kerr, Director of Safer Gambling at GVC Holdings, added: “Whilst we want football fans to be able to enjoy a bet, we recognise the importance of doing this in a safe, responsible way.
“Handing over this valuable inventory to GambleAware is a demonstration that we are committed to helping our customers bet in a safe and responsible way, and we look forward to continuing to promote the Bet Regret campaignin the future to help increase awareness about safer gambling.”
