Irish President Michael D Higgins is no fan of sports betting, and has called it a scourge. If anything, he’s even more disturbed by the ubiquity of sports betting ads, which he believes can lead to problem gambling.
Higgins recently spoke about his concerns at the opening of an addiction rehabilitation center in County Wicklow, according to the Irish Independent.
“I welcome the fact that the debate on sports gambling advertising has now been taken up in the public discourse,” he said, and added that “small-print warnings” about responsible gaming are little more than token efforts.
Higgins had support from an unlikely source. Former Paddy Power CEO Stewart Kenny said Ireland is “so far behind in regulating the gambling industry that there is no protection for the young and vulnerable.” Kenny called the government negligent for its failure, and also blames himself. “I was part of it,” he said, “and I have deep regrets that I was not more proactive.”
Kenny co-founded Paddy Power in 1988, but today, has few kind words for the industry. Kenny still enjoys gambling and thinks it can be a great pastime done the right way. But he resigned from the bookmaker in 2016 “because they refused to do anything meaningful on gambling addiction. In fairness to the industry, we didn’t realize how much it would take over people’s lives. I must take responsibility for some of the developments.”
Paddy Power disputed Kenny’s assertions about its responsible gaming efforts. The company has a full-time RG team. It’s banned credit cards for online betting and gaming, established a whistle-to-whistle advertising ban for live sports, and dedicated 1 percent of net gaming revenue to support research, education and treatment of people who have suffered gambling related harm. The fund is expected to bring in €3 million (US$3.5 million) per year by 2023.
The Irish Bookmakers Association, the umbrella body for the industry in Ireland, told RTI’s Prime Time news program that members have made “significant strides in recent years to update our safer gambling policies.”
In addition, addiction counselors say a national regulatory body is essential. During a Seanad legislative debate in April, Minister of State for Justice James Browne said the government will establish an “extremely powerful” gambling regulator this year to focus on public health and well-being and combat gambling harms.
The Irish Exchequer benefitted from €4.75 billion in taxes from gambling in 2019; adding in the National Lottery and other forms of gambling, the Department of Justice has valued the Irish gambling market annually at between €6 billion and €8 billion. According to Kenny, the volume of revenues is a big part of the problem.
“The government is as addicted to the tax revenue from gambling as the unfortunate vulnerable customers are to the gambling,” he said. “Is the government prepared to take a slight downturn in their taxation revenue from gambling? The government needs to legislate, not hide behind a regulator,” he said.
It’s not all dire news. The 2020 UEFA European Championships was successful. But for those against sports betting ads, it was really a hit. The number of such ads fell by 47 percent compared to the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
According to data, 85 ads appeared on ITV and ITV4 during the Euro 2020 group stages. Compare that to the 161 ads on the same channels of the World Cup three years ago. The reduction resulted from a whistle-to-whistle ban pushed by the U.K. Betting and Gaming Council, the industry trade group.
“These figures are testament to the success of the whistle-to-whistle ban and the continued drive for higher standards introduced by the regulated industry since 2019,” said council CEO Michael Dugher. “At the start of the tournament, we had the same siren voices from the usual suspects in the anti-gambling lobby making dire warnings about people being ‘bombarded’ with betting ads and calling for a ban.”
Under the ban, ads are prohibited from five minutes prior to the start of the game and five minutes after if before 9 p.m.
Dugher added that the U.K. government also acknowledged that independent research “did not establish a causal link between exposure to advertising and the development of problem gambling.”
