Gambling Advertising in Sport

Carolyn Harris Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Carolyn Harris (Swansea East) (Lab)]

Before we proceed, I should say that we have had official apologies from the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is unable to be with us but sends his best wishes.

Gambling advertising in sport has grown exponentially since the Gambling Act 2005, and gambling is now virtually synonymous with sport. With 1.8 million at-risk gamblers in the UK and approximately 500 suicides linked to gambling every year, this is something that should be of huge concern to every one of us.

Although all sport is affected by gambling, there are some frightening statistics on the relationship between gambling and football, the nation’s favourite game. Half of all premier league shirts are emblazoned with gambling-company logos, with 10 out of the 20 premier league clubs having signed deals worth a combined £69 million. Malta-based firm Betway is the biggest contributor, as a result of its £10 million deal with West Ham. Clubs stand to earn nearly £350 million from such deals in the coming season—that is an increase of more than 10% on the 2018-19 season.

Betting’s dominance is even more pronounced in the championship, where 17 out of the 24 club shirts display a betting logo, meaning that 27 of England’s top 44 clubs have secured highly profitable shirt-sponsorship deals with the gambling industry. It frightens me how much influence those logos will have on children, and on those who are already struggling with a gambling addiction.

I have spoken to problem gamblers who have freely told me that they watch football merely to seek out the names of new companies with which they can open gambling accounts. With high-profile names further promoting these deals, gambling will be even more normalised among young people. An example is Wayne Rooney, who has been wearing the No. 32 shirt at Derby County since January, as part of the club’s partnership with 32Red.

Although around 80% of gambling advertising budgets is now spent online, there is still a worryingly vast amount of opportunities during sports programmes on television for vulnerable people to be bombarded with gambling advertisements. In a recent study, Professor Jim Orford from the University of Birmingham noted that gambling logos are on screen for 70% of the time during “Match of the Day” programmes in the United Kingdom. Analysis of live sports on television found that gambling adverts are particularly prominent during football matches. During one game between Scottish teams Rangers and Celtic, gambling brands were visible on 920 occasions—that is equivalent to once every 10 seconds.

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way. I declare an interest, in so far as I am the MP for Celtic football club, which is in my constituency. I must confess that I am quite uncomfortable with both Rangers and Celtic having such sponsorship on their tops. In a debate in Westminster Hall earlier this week, the Minister was keen to tell us that attendance at football is going up. The reality is that the demographic tends to be young, low-income men, and the exposure to these betting firms is not good for public health. I commend the hon. Lady for raising this issue, and I hope she will keep going and ask these clubs to think again.

[Carolyn Harris]

I will come to that in my speech.

Shockingly, gambling advertising is also prevalent on the shirts in the video game “FIFA 2020”—the country’s best-selling video game, which is recommended for ages three and above and is a firm favourite of many young children. Those children may not be aware of the nature of the sponsors’ business, but they will be aware of the names, and in time, they will come to realise the type of company that those names represent.

An analogy of this is my assistant’s 11-year-old son, Thomas. He can easily identify the flags of the world from just playing FIFA games. For obvious reasons, we have not asked him to identify the logos of the gambling companies, but children are absorbing this information every time they play these games.

It certainly feels like the gambling industry is tightening its grip on the world of sport, and especially football. Nearly every club now has an official gambling partner, and aside from the shirt sponsorship deals, many clubs have betting outlets inside their stadiums, and many leagues are sponsored by the industry. As we have learned from the recent Bet365 debacle, until recently, some matches were only available through betting company apps.

In recent weeks, I have written to the big six Premier League clubs—Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Arsenal—to ask them to meet me and colleagues from the gambling-related harm all-party parliamentary group, to discuss the deals they have with gambling companies and their plans. Interestingly, Tottenham replied within 24 hours, readily agreeing to meet, while Manchester United contacted my office to say they had asked the Premier League to represent them at a meeting. I have not heard back from the other four. I understand the importance of an industry body having a presence at a meeting, but I see no purpose in their attending in place of the clubs to talk about the deals that the clubs are responsible for.

It really worries me that vulnerable people are being groomed by the gambling industry through advertising. The Advisory Board for Safer Gambling has said that, by not taking action to limit the exposure of young people to gambling advertising,

“we are in danger of inadvertently conducting an uncontrolled social experiment on today’s youth, the outcome of which is uncertain but could be significant.”

The sector urgently needs to adopt a more responsible approach on advertising, particularly during sports programmes, to protect children and the vulnerable. Paddy Power’s “joke” football shirt sponsorship deal last year with Huddersfield Town, which got huge publicity, is an indictment of the current state of gambling sponsorship proliferation.

So, what should be done? First, of course, the industry itself must take action. The gambling-related harm APPG welcomes the whistle-to-whistle television ban. But for the advertising ban to be truly effective, these companies should go even further, to include shirt and league sponsorship and digital advertising around the pitch. Otherwise, children and vulnerable adults will continue to be bombarded with gambling adverts. That is something we hope to discuss with the Premier League clubs we have written to, who I hope to eventually get to meet.

I must also mention Lewes football club, which is soon to launch a charter to get other clubs to commit to ending gambling advertising in football in the same way that it has. The charter urges clubs to: never accept any form of sponsorship or donation from the gambling industry; actively promote and raise awareness of the risk of gambling addiction; lobby fellow clubs, leagues and the Football Association to refuse to advertise or promote gambling in football; and to support people and families affected by gambling addiction. I have had a brief conversation with my local club, Swansea City, which has gambling sponsorship but understands the issues and is actively seeking a way to sign up to that charter when it is in a position to do so.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the broadcasters have been quite resistant to the clampdown on advertising. Television companies have an important role to play, and they must start acknowledging and improving how they deliver on their duty of care to viewers.

Given the limited progress on dealing with gambling advertising, it seems that the time has come for a blanket ban on gambling advertising in sport. That is what we had before the Gambling Act 2005, and I am going to usurp the Minister by saying that, yes, that was Labour Government legislation, but I was not a member of that Government. Had I been, I would have objected to that Act in the strongest terms.

In the upcoming gambling review, there is much that I will ask the Government to do. However, on this issue, I urge them, as a matter of urgency, to bring an end to the highly profitable, yet highly damaging relationships between sports clubs and the gambling industry. A good place to start would be to talk to organisations such as The Big Step, which work tirelessly to promote the message of no gambling advertising in sports.

Many of us are willing to work with the Government to get this right. We have the voices. We have the knowledge. I ask the Government to let us help them transform and neutralise the damaging consequences of problem gambling.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. He may be tempting me to pre-empt the conclusions of the gambling review that we will be conducting, and I will say more about it later. However, that review will be forthcoming—it was in the manifesto—and we will all have plenty of opportunity to look further into these issues. I cannot say too much more on the specifics at the moment, but I understand the point he is making.

It is true that operators are spending far more on advertising. Research has indicated that operators have increased their spend on advertising and marketing significantly in recent years. It would be easy to assume that that has led to increased rates of gambling or of problem gambling, but, according to the Gambling Commission, the percentage of those who gambled in the last year was 47%, which was 1% less than the percentage who gambled in 2016, and rates of problem gambling have remained relatively steady, at below 1% for the past 20 years. Before the hon. Member for Swansea East intervenes, as I know she will on that point, let me say that that is too high—that is one thing we agree on. We continue to keep a careful eye on the evidence, but more advertising does not seem to lead to more people gambling or more people suffering from gambling problems.

However, there are clearly legitimate concerns about problem gambling. I am pleased that the industry has listened to concerns, such as those raised by the hon. Lady, and has acted to some extent: it has extended existing restrictions on pre-watershed advertising to include live sport—the so-called “whistle-to-whistle ban” that she mentioned.

Protecting children and other vulnerable people from gambling harms is a priority for the Government. Gambling advertising, like alcohol, is already governed by strict rules to ensure that it is not targeted at children and is not of particular appeal to them. Where advertising breaches these rules, the commission can and does take action.

We know that millions of people gamble each year and that nearly 7% of the population bet on sport last year. Most of those people will suffer no harm, but gambling does carry risks. That is why, as part of the last gambling review that took place between 2016 and 2018, we secured a commitment from industry to fund a multimillion-pound safer gambling advertising campaign to highlight the risks and encourage safer gambling behaviours.

Of course, advertising is not the whole story; sponsorship is an important source of income for sporting teams and bodies, as the hon. Member for Swansea East mentioned. The Gambling Commission has been clear that operators must undertake their sponsorship activities in a socially responsible way. The FA has strict rules about the size and placement of operator logos and has taken action when those have been breached. Logos cannot feature on shirts worn by youth team players and on merchandising, including shirts in children’s sizes. Paddy Power’s stunt with Huddersfield led to the FA fining the club.

[Carolyn Harris]

Perhaps I can just enlighten the Minister: if a child is of a larger size and cannot get a shirt to fit in a child’s size, they end up having the logo on the front of it, so unless clubs make a special effort to have adult shirts without logos, which they are obviously not going to because it is not in their interests, children are able to wear shirts with logos on.

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady is making a fair point and, as I said, I am sure that all these things will be considered in the gambling review. The remit of the review has not yet been scoped, but she will have strong opinions on it—of that I have no doubt.