UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/feb/01/i-lost-10-years-of-my-life-how-uk-betting-giants-unlawful-marketing-kept-suicidal-gambler-hooked

by Tarsul • 1 year ago

94 99 1 year ago

theguardian.com

FerretFred• 1 year ago

The government will never intervene while the UK gambling industry contributes so much money. In 2022, the total figure was about £14 billion. See https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/report/annual-report-a...

Retric6• 1 year ago

It’s a really inefficient tax as the net economic loss is well past £14 billion. One argument is gambling is simply something people like to do, but in that case some regulations would be expected.

Where it makes sense is when you’re pulling in outside money from foreigners, but I don’t think many people go to the UK to gamble.

echoangle4• 1 year ago

Do you have a source for the net economic loss being higher?

beejiu2• 1 year ago

£14 billion is the industry revenue. Gambling taxes to the state are £3.3 billion. Gambling harms are costed at £1.77 billion, of which £1 billion is death from suicide and £0.5 billion for depression. Those costs are conservative estimates (the government "expect that the true costs are higher because the lack of evidence meant that it was not possible to cost all types of harms or the wider harms to individuals or society")

In what other industry are those societal harms acceptable?

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gambling-related-...

locallost2• 1 year ago

Automotive industry. If you factor in climate change, then fossil fuel industry first and foremost, but actually quite a lot of them.

hbrav• 1 year ago

I don't believe this is creating £14B of value. It's transferring £14B from people (I suspect largely poor people) to those firms.

We should crack down on these firms. They're a net negative for Britain.

cm20124• 1 year ago

I work in advertising and defend tracking, targeting, Meta, etc all the time as largely harmless. But I think one exception is when they promote products which are bad.

Tobacco ads are already banned - gambling should 100% be a banned ad category. So should mobile apps that are basically gambling in disguise.

EA-31672• 1 year ago

How do you feel about advertising alcohol, Gacha games, MLM businesses and things like that?

cm20124• 1 year ago

I'd ban them all

dagurp• 1 year ago

Gambling ads are banned in my country but we get bombarded by them on YouTube. Me and a bunch of people I've talked to have reported them many times but nothing happens.

lotsofpulp• 1 year ago

What is bad? Alcohol? Cheap clothes made to be worn a handful times and that shed microplastics all over the place? Gratuitous consumption solely for the purpose of signaling wealth? Political parties that want to restrict people’s rights?

miohtama• 1 year ago

Software industry that defines bad is called compliance-industrial complex.

Defining bad is a big business. Here is a good book about it:

https://www.amazon.com/Compliance-Industrial-Complex-Operati...

cm20124• 1 year ago

As decided by elected officials.

ninkendo• 1 year ago

I live in a Midwest state that allows gambling completely unrestricted, including apps where you just give a credit card and press a slot machine button and (inevitably) lose all your money.

I also watch the local news each morning as part of my morning routine.

It’s utterly ridiculous how many gambling ads are on tv now. Like outside of election season with political ads, it feels like 9 in 10 ads are for some gambling app. Sometimes a casino app, often sports betting. It feels so dystopian, like if I were an addict it would be seriously triggering me how constant and incessant the ads are. It’s always felt so strange to me that we allow this.

I’ve also had family members lose their livelihoods to gambling apps. They have perfected the addictiveness, giving you free credits if you lose too much, to keep you going. It’s extremely difficult to actually get money out of the apps too. They want you to gamble it all away, but slowly. Of all the things that have changed in this part of the country in my lifetime, this is the most obviously bad one, the one that makes me feel the most ashamed of how bad we’ve collectively let things get.

giantg216• 1 year ago

Not sure of your location, but it seems many rural areas have turned completely to vice. It seems every other new business is a smoke shop, dispensary, bar, tattoo parlor, etc. Many other businesses are shutting down, like bowling alleys, hobby related stores, etc. And gambling has been added to some that stick around, including stuff like "skills based" games.

But the most obviously bad change I've seen is the drugs. I think they're also partially responsible for the popularity of gambling due to hopelessness and how bad things have gotten in some areas.

Edit: I should add that the other 50% of business seem to be fast food and dollar stores.

mvdtnz• 1 year ago

Is there anywhere I could watch a livestream of this kind of channel? I would like to get a feeling for just how bad it is. I live in a country where betting and advertising of betting is legal. I don't like it, but it doesn't seem to be nearly as bad here and what you're describing.

jamesfinlayson2• 1 year ago

In Australia gambling ads are pretty frequent on TV, at least during football (NRL and AFL season). I think the government is looking to crack on the hours when the ads can run but I don't think the TV stations are too thrilled as gambling companies are big spenders when it comes to ads and I don't think many if any other industries come close to spend in TV ad dollars.

DrBazza3• 1 year ago

I work in advertising and defend tracking, targeting, Meta, etc all the time as largely harmless.

Perhaps tell that to one of my friends that has a shopping addiction. He buys endless amounts of running gear, and then resells it, basically burning thousands of pounds every year. His phone does nothing but show more and more running gear adverts. We've told him to stop but he reckons he doesn't have a problem. No runner needs 30 pairs of trainers a year, or 10 rucksacks etc.

_carbyau_• 1 year ago

Your friend needs to youtube review them - preferably honestly and decently. Experience across a market of products is valuable!

cm20124• 1 year ago

Advertising is just a tool. Shopping addiction is really unfortunate but it exists with or without targeted ads - people buying too much stuff has existed since shopping existed. Like you said, you can't help someone who doesn't think they have a problem - sellers will just give them what they want.

However, some categories of products are categorically bad, like gambling. So we can ban anything that makes it easier to do those categories.

9283409232• 1 year ago

Funny, there is a story on the front page right now demonstrating how harmful ads can be.

https://timsh.org/tracking-myself-down-through-in-app-ads/

WheatMillington• 1 year ago

Yeah you don't really have much moral ground to stand on there.

stuaxo• 1 year ago

Blairs government deregulated gambling to a large extent, hoping for some tax back from large casinos in theory at least.

ashoeafoot• 1 year ago

industry is basically a tax on the government's paid out social services

DrBazza3• 1 year ago

That was the government that was supposed to stand up 'for the poor', but allowing a predatory industry to thrive, whose main demographic are 'the poor'.

giantg216• 1 year ago

Have there been any governments in the developed world in the past 25 years that has actually stood up for the poor? I know some have said they would but it seems like their ideas are just expansion of benefits programs that don't actually help the problem or move the stats. Seems more like buying votes.

GlacierFox2• 1 year ago

I've never made a bet before, on an app or in a betting shop and have no inclination to ever do so. However, in the UK I'm bombarded with gambling (bingo and 'games') advertisements on daytime TV aimed at trying to convince me it's actually in some way fun to pittle away my money. Then if I watch anything after 10pm on a UK streaming service or live advertising funded TV, I'm absolutely battered with endless gambling site adverts. I'm not exaggerating, every single one of them. I think the government's sat with it's fingers crossed hoping to ride this wave and reap the rewards until it has to come out with the obligatory crackdown on this psychopathic industry it's allowing to fester and expand at an alarming rate. It's an epidemic here but it's all fun though guys isn't it? Guys? Nothing wrong with a flutter now and then!

giantg216• 1 year ago

It's pretty rampant in the US too.

I don't think a little gambling is bad, but the endless ads are a huge problem. They should really make all advertising of commonly addictive stuff banned - gambling, alcohol, etc. They should also do a better job of educating kids in school about the dangers and tricks.

They were going you $100+ to open an account, or doing a deposit match up to $1k here. It's exactly what drug dealers do to get people hooked or scam artists to con someone - here's a free taste, or a deal that's too good to pass up.

dutchbookmaker• 1 year ago

I think sports betting is obnoxious and stupid but I do worry about this moral policing some seem to want to do.

The people I know losing money to online sports betting are the same people who thought they were going to become pro online poker grinders 15 years ago.

If you got rid of online sports betting they would go play slots at the casino more and waste their money on the lottery.

If you get rid of all games of chance for money, there is a good % of people who will find a way to squander their savings somehow.

If anything, people I know waste far more money going out to eat than sports betting.

DrBazza3• 1 year ago

I'm glad it's not just me that's noticed this. I thought it was targeted advertising because I also see lots of 'old people adverts' :)

It's horrific really. I change channels as soon as one of those adverts come on. Premier League football teams are sponsored by them, and I suppose F1 cars probably are as well. But not cigarettes. Then again, I've never seen cigarettes ruin an entire family and for them to end up in financial ruin and without a house.

Someone else called them parasites, and they're not wrong.

Tostino4• 1 year ago

Then again, I've never seen cigarettes ruin an entire family and for them to end up in financial ruin and without a house.

In the US, your hypothetical mother who smokes and gets lung cancer could easily bankrupt the family and leave them in financial ruin (you know, if your family tries to pay for the treatments so she doesn't die).

Oh yeah, we're talking about the UK here...carry on.

tialaramex2• 1 year ago

I have made exactly one actual bet for money.

In December 2020 I bet that Donald Trump had lost the US Presidential Election, which he had done the previous month.

Ordinarily of course you can't make bets like that because nobody wants the other side of the bet†, but there were plenty of takers for "No, Donald Trump actually won" so I got paid off, it wasn't a huge profit but it was meaningful.

† There are two ways you could be betting, sometimes you can bet "against the house". A company is trying to adjust the odds such that whoever wins, they end up benefiting, it can be tricky to do this and requires expertise so... the other way is you're betting against other punters like you, which works like the buy/sell orders on a stock exchange and the house just gets a percentage no matter what happens. Political gambling tends to be on the latter basis.

[Edited: I originally wrote December 2021, but obviously it's December 2020 when I made that bet, he lost in November 2020, not November 2021]

ben_w• 1 year ago

I was tempted to do likewise, but then someone pointed out the risk there isn't that we might be incorrect about a very well publicised event that had already happened, it's that the other side has a successful coup to make their fantasy into a reality.

The odds didn't look so friendly when I considered them as a chance of a coup.

And indeed, then Jan 6 happened, and people are sill here on this website arguing that what specifically happened on that day doesn't meet their idea of an attempted coup.

rcxdude2• 1 year ago

This is a common issue in prediction markets: they tend to look nonsensical at the extremes, because if you're betting on 'sure outcome', then the main issues are a) counterparty risk, i.e. the risk that the payout is not awarded correctly, and b) opportunity costs, as the margins can be slim enough and the payout date far enough away that you've got better things you could do with your money.

andyjohnson02• 1 year ago

I'm in the UK and have been applying for dev jobs over the last six months. I've had at least five approaches from recruiters representing gambling companies. They seem to have a lot of money to spend on salaries, and promise experience of languages like Go, and also ML, data science, etc.

I always give them the same answer: no. I don't work for parasites.

I remember the time before the Blair government unwisely deregulated gambling, and I hope we can one day return to that.

pclmulqdq• 1 year ago

Are there any other parasites you wouldn't work for?

urbandw311er• 1 year ago

Not the parent poster but maybe certain banks and financial institutions

noneeeed• 1 year ago

Likewise. I will happily work in the vast majority of legal industries in the UK, they all have varying degrees of social good about them. I might not get a warm fuzzy feeling about all of them, but a job's a job.

But I won't touch gambling, especially in the UK. It a nasty, predatory industry that preys on people. They know they are doing it, but they hide behind BS excuses and empty promises, and time after time investigations clearly show they intentionally goad on problem gamblers.

To be clear, this isn't a moral objection to people gambling. If you enjoy it, and are in control, then have fun. It's the companies, they are scum.

giantg216• 1 year ago

I hate them, but I'd probably work for them. There's a lot to hate about places like big tech, finance, energy, and basically every other sector. It would probably soul crushing, but so is my current job.

andyjohnson02• 1 year ago

My opinion is that gambling crushes other people's souls. I'm not going to do that.

Tostino4• 1 year ago

I don't think me hating my current job would make me more willing to work on products that have a very real, measurable harm to the population as a whole, just for some more money.

bbrks• 1 year ago

UK tech job pay is very bimodal and unfortunately both modes suck in different ways...

In the major mode, it feels like 90% are gambling, crypto or traditional finance. The remaining 10% are US tech companies getting a bit more for their money over here. Not sure how much longer that last subcategory will last. Most of these jobs will leave you wanting a good scrub in a scalding shower. Even the US ones.

The minor mode are where you'll find roles at UK-based tech companies, non-tech companies requiring programmers, web developers, etc. etc. The scope is vast and the pay is meh... and maybe my sample size is far too small and time-biased here, but I find the people at these places are so much more down to Earth, operate in a wider spectrum of fields and life experiences, and are just way more interesting and varied day-to-day than endless tech hype drudgery.

You wouldn't have guessed, but for the last 7 years, I have not been in a job at a minor mode company... and maybe the greener grass is glistening rather brightly right now!

We have a pretty abysmal tech landscape really given our involvement in computing history. It has all been sold off and gradually moved offshore. Europe has a reasonably heathly and open tech industry, albiet at a smaller scale than US, but of course us British are not allowed to play with them any more!

throwaway20374• 1 year ago

    > traditional finance

I would go further and separate tech jobs between (a) commercial banking and (b) "markets" (trading) at investment banks. There is a huge pay gap between them.

jamesfinlayson2• 1 year ago

I remember the time before the Blair government unwisely deregulated gambling

Not sure when that was but in Australia a similar decision was made in... 2007 or 2008 maybe? It feels like it has been a constant race to the bottom with endless competing companies trying to out-do each other with enticements to bring in new/re-engage existing players (none of whom have any loyalty anyway).

I know monopolies have their issues but I don't remember it being like this when there was a single operator (yes there have always been problem gamblers but 20 years there wasn't wall to wall advertising, deposit-matching, odds-boost etc).

chickenimprint• 1 year ago

A just, healthy society would target and remove those who enrich themselves at the expense of others. The continued existence of society rests upon cooperation beating defection. The exponential rise of legal gambling in the western world is a massive blow to public trust in institutions who were supposed to act in the interest of the people, and a sign of rampant corruption and societal decay.

southernplaces72• 1 year ago

I always give them the same answer: no. I don't work for parasites.

Feel like specifying what makes them so distinctly more parasitic than, say, a company like Google or Facebook? Both of which many people here seem to have no trouble working for.

snakeyjake• 1 year ago

The number of people who have lost all of their money and then killed themselves using Google and Facebook is not zero.

It's a fuckton lower than the number of people who have lost all of their money and then killed themselves due to betting.

The morality line for me is at an unknown and unknowable (and you'll just have to deal with that I am a human not a computer) position that is higher than Google/Facebook and lower than gambling apps.

edit: lol no never mind, on further self-examination I would rather starve to death under a bridge than work at facebook trying to figure out how to use AI to addict people so that they buy dropshipped garbage from our advertisers and not the other guys.

Veserv• 1 year ago

Once again, we see that deceptive marketing is one of the great legal evils.

Their marketing department assuredly pulled long hours carefully and intentionally crafting statements meant to cause the recipient to believe something false or at the very least different than what they actually believe, i.e. deception. They almost certainly ran focus groups verifying that their targets would, in fact, believe the untrue things they wanted them to believe that would enrich themselves.

In court they will say: "Technically, your honor, the words used could, in the most contrived and worst of all possible universes, actually mean something true; so our deliberate and intentional actions to make sure that they would be misinterpreted by our victims can not be held against us." If you carefully crafted a statement and verified its reception and interpretation, and only after it has been misinterpreted as intended then claim that "technically, your honor..." you should be guilty of false advertising or equivalent. You had plenty of opportunity to make sure that the standard interpretation of your statements would be accurate, but you intentionally chose to make it deceptive for your own enrichment.

The more time, money, and effort spent on a message, the more accurate, truthful, and only unintentionally misinterpretable to your benefit it should be. All of that effort now spent on focus grouping how to make it intentionally deceptive must instead be focused on making it intentionally truthful. This would reward true, accurate, and helpful marketing that seeks to inform at the cost of hampering false, deceptive, misleading marketing seeking to separate society from its money for garbage or actively harmful products and services.

"Technically, your honor..." should be met with "Go directly to jail".

justinclift• 1 year ago

One recipient, the intelligence firm Signal, had used it to conduct sophisticated profiling that it sent back to Sky Betting & Gaming

That sounds like a different "Signal" than most people are aware of.

throwaway20374• 1 year ago

Related: The website LessWrong has an epic write-up about the negative impacts of online sports gambling in the United States: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tHiB8jLocbPLagYDZ/the-online...

2-3-7-43-1807• 1 year ago

what a world where an adult doesn't even have to take responsibility for their own actions because of whatever excuse. sad state.

UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

Related Stories