2 August 2019
GambleAware News Release
GVC Donates football sponsorship to GambleAware to promote Safer Gambling
- GVC, the parent company of Ladbrokes, has donated its football sponsorship assets at a number of high-profile English clubs and at all Scottish Professional Football League clubs for the 2019/20 season, to support GambleAware’s ‘Bet Regret’ campaign.
- The safer gambling campaign Bet Regret is aimed at moderating the behaviour of young male bettors by encouraging them to think twice about betting when drunk, bored or chasing losses.
- The Scottish and English Professional Football League seasons starts this Friday 2 August
GVC Holdings, one of the world’s largest sports betting and gaming groups, today announced that it will be removing many of their sponsorship assets for the upcoming football season, donating them instead to GambleAware’s ‘Bet Regret’ campaign.
The Scottish Professional Football League kicks off this weekend, but where the Ladbrokes logo would have previously sat on many of the assets for all clubs taking part, including interview backdrops, static and LED boards, 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 and avoid the sinking feeling bettors often get when they make an impulsive bet, particularly when bored, chasing losses or drunk.
It’s not just Scotland that will see this donation, with a number of English clubs who have GVC companies as commercial partners replacing gambling promotion with Bet Regret messaging, including Sunderland, West Bromwich Albion, Burnley, Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. In total 42 clubs will be donating their sponsorship assets to GambleAware.
Sponsorship, and in particular gambling sponsorship, has never been more prevalent in football. In England, more than half of Premier League clubs are now sponsored by a betting firm and 17 of 24 Championship clubs.
Targeted at an audience estimated at 2.4m young men aged 16-34 who gamble regularly on sport, and of which 87% regularly watch football1, the ‘Bet Regret’ campaign was launched earlier this year. The campaign is centred around raising awareness of three risky behaviours – betting whilst bored, drunk or chasing losses. 63% of this target audience believe that there are too many opportunities to bet nowadays2, whist around 2 million adults suffer some level of harm related to gambling, including 340,000 that 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 prevalent 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 said: “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 campaign in the future to help increase awareness about safer gambling.”
For tips on how to keep betting in check, visit www.BeGambleAware.org/BetRegret
1Source: TGI GB Profiles December 2018 – UK Gamblers 18-34
2Source: Ipsos MORI Baseline Survey Key Findings - 2018
CONTACT:
Sam Hurley
+44 7590 632802
sam.hurley@mcsaatchi.com
- GambleAware is an independent charity (Charity No. England & Wales 1093910, Scotland SC049433) that champions a public health approach to preventing gambling harms – see http://about.gambleaware.org/
- GambleAware is a commissioner of integrated prevention, education and treatment services on a national scale, with over £40 million of grant funding under active management. In partnership with gambling treatment providers, GambleAware has spent several years methodically building structures for commissioning a coherent system of brief intervention and treatment services, with clearly defined care pathways and established referral routes to and from the NHS – a National Gambling Treatment Service.
- The National Gambling Treatment Service brings together a National Gambling Helpline and a network of locally-based providers across Great Britain that works with partner agencies and people with lived experience to design and deliver a system, which meets the needs of individuals. This system delivers a range of treatment services, including brief intervention, counselling (delivered either face-to-face or online), residential programmes and psychiatrist-led care.
- In the 12 months to 31 March 2019, provisional figures show that the National Gambling Treatment Service treated 10,000 people and this is projected to rise to 24,000 people a year by 2021. Helpline activity is currently running at about 30,000 calls and on-line chats per annum. GambleAware also runs the website BeGambleAware.org which helps 2.7 million visitors a year, and signposts to a wide range of support services.
- GambleAware produces public health campaigns including Bet Regret. A Safer Gambling Board, including representatives from Public Health England, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and GambleAware, is responsible for the design and delivery of a campaign based on best practice in public health education. The Bet Regret campaign is being funded through specific, additional donations to the charity, in line with a commitment given to the government by the broadcasting, advertising and gambling industries.
See https://about.gambleaware.org/prevention/safer-gambling-campaign/.