More Than a Game? How Betting Has Hijacked Sports Culture
Image Courtesy: Nick Yang via Unsplash
On Wednesday the 29th of January, the UEFA Champions League hosted 18 games simultaneously. A night to be celebrated as a great exhibition of the world’s most popular sport, however, was seen by many football fans as a divine betting opportunity. Has the culture of betting – in particular online betting – gone too far?
As someone from a family of non-gamblers, betting has always been fairly irrelevant to my day-to-day life. Nonetheless, it is impossible to overlook the addictiveness of gambling, especially pervasive amongst men, that has been made only more accessible through mobile betting apps. In 2023, the Gambling Commission estimated that as many as 1.3 million adults suffered from these addictions in Great Britain, a number expected to increase with the accessibility of online betting.
Posing an even greater concern, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities predicted that just under 500 people committed gambling-related suicide in 2023, a statistic that is becoming an annual reoccurrence. As a result, many charities and families of addicts have called for stricter regulations on gambling advertisement and support networks to prevent this sort of irreparable damage.
Yet, sports are currently so dependent on gambling sponsorship that this advertisement will not be stopping anytime soon. For example, more than half of the current 2024/25 Premier League (EPL) football teams are sponsored by betting companies whose logos are clearly visible on shirts, in stadiums, and even behind players in interviews. This constant exposure to betting related imagery not only normalises the habit of gambling during games but also infers that the league would be worse off without these institutions. Therefore, an odd sense of gratitude is bestowed to mobile gambling apps, despite the breadth of negative impacts they have on people’s livelihoods. Such impacts have been acknowledged by the EPL as, in the 2025/26 season, gambling-related sponsors will no longer be advertised on the front of shirts.
But will this be enough? Anyone who has watched match-day content on TV knows that at least half the adverts are betting related, with big names – typically catering to the male audience – being employed in a humorous context to incentivise this “lads, lads, lads” activity.
If Forbes is anything to go by, the answer to whether this industry is slowing any time soon is “no”. For the past few years, the wealthiest woman in the UK has been gambling-business mogul Denise Coates. With a current net worth of over $10 billion (USD), Coates is the founder and CEO of Bet365, one of the most prolific and iconic online betting services. This immense wealth has enabled companies such as Bet365 to command increasing authority over the sports sector in general. For instance, Steven Caulker, a former footballer and gambling addict himself, was reportedly dropped from video series that was sponsored by Bet365, allegedly due to his public statements surrounding the dangers of gambling. This episode laid bare the total disregard of gambling companies for their customers’ welfare, prioritising profits over safety. Consequently, the overwhelming leverage that these betting companies hold has been heavily criticised as ruining the game, with football becoming more centred around money than genuine passion for the sport.
Whilst ‘measures’ have been taken within these mobile betting apps – such as spend or time limits – these options are dictated by customer restraint. It is therefore evident that these immensely profitable gambling companies have staggeringly little concern over the wellbeing of their users and actively capitalise on the addictive nature of their services, forcing blame onto addicts instead of the industry.
As gambling continues to contaminate sports with destructive impacts on its fans, heightened awareness and restrictions are vital to deconstruct the advertised allure of betting. External intervention and support, too, are needed to accommodate the growing number of gambling addicts – as gambling’s grip has never been more unconfined.