Football gambling a major source of income for Brit bookies

Preceding last week’s news break that gambling companies are considering a reduction in television advertising during live matches the Gambling Commission released statistics showing that British online bookmaking firms earned more than GBP 1 billion last year from online football betting alone.

The Gross Gambling Yield for remote football bets in 2017/18 soared 57 percent y-o-y to GBP 1,037,730,000 according to industry statistics published by the Commission, more than six times higher than the same period back in 2014.

However, football is not the only sport where online gambling companies are focused. Betting GGY for horse racing last year reached GBP 610 million last year; tennis delivered GGY of GBP 145 million; dog races GBP 54 million and cricket GBP 32 million. All contributed to overall GGY of GBP 2.3 billion earned in the online market last year.

The importance of football to the betting companies was underlined earlier this year by a study carried out by Reach Data, which revealed that 60 percent of football clubs in the top leagues of English football were engaged in shirt sponsorship deals with online betting companies.

That prompted GambleAware CEO Mark Etches to warn: “The nature and extent of gambling-related advertising exposes children to adult activity and we are concerned that this may lead to an increase in gambling-related harms in the future.

“We encourage all those involved in professional sport to balance the promotion of gambling by ensuring fans better understand the nature of gambling, the risks associated, and where to go for help if needed, for example at BeGambleAware.org.”

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