Layman's Laws

We’ve all experienced it. Sitting down, ready to soak in your favourite sport on TV or YouTube with snacks in hand.

Suddenly, you’re bombarded with an onslaught of charming ads singing the praises of online sports gambling. They’re relatable, often featuring the Average Joe winning big, and leverage bright colours, comedy and bravado.

It happens suspiciously often. In a country where the advertising of other addictive substances, like tobacco, are stringently restricted, it’s disconcerting how widespread gambling culture is in advertising. In a 2017 study of 25 live UK football matches, a betting-related advert appeared in 95% of all ad breaks, including pitch-side advertising and sponsorships. Of course, these ads conclude with the proviso ‘Gamble Responsibly.’ Quite some protection, right?

Maybe not. The growth of the sports betting industry is staggering. Between March 2019 and March 2023, the number of active real-event sports bettors increased by about 26.7%, translating into roughly 1.4 million new active players.

It’ is’s trite that gambling has and will continue to ruin lives. So, this digest is to explore how it got to this point, what industry players are doing and where we’re heading.

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Are the guards awake?

Central to regulation is the Gambling Act 2005 (“GA”), which controls all forms of gambling in the UK. Some of the Act’s central aims are ‘ensuring that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way‘, and to protect ‘children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling‘ (s.1 GA). This extends to gambling advertisements.

Section 327 of the GA broadly defines gambling as anything done to ‘encourage people to take advantage of facilities for gambling‘. Regulation of these ads is through a complex hierarchy of bodies and codes.

For a quick legal rundown:

1. Section 20 GA establishes an executive, non-departmental Governmental body known as the Gambling Commission (“GC”) responsible for overseeing gambling regulation adherence.
   • Any gambling company seeking to transact with, and advertise to, British consumers must have a licence from the GC.
2. Section 24 of the GA empowers the GC to issue codes, such as the Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (“LCCP”), which gambling companies must comply with to be granted a licence.
3. Under 5.1.6 of the LCCP, gambling companies must comply with advertising codes administered by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), specifically, those from (1) the UK Code of Broadcast Advertising (BCAP Code), and (2) the UK Code of Non-Broadcast Advertising and Direct & Promotional Marketing (CAP Code).
   • BCAP code: for all adverts on radio and television
   • CAP Code: for non-broadcast adverts, like sales promotions and direct marketing comms
4. Section 355 GA allows the Secretary of State to introduce secondary legislation to further the Act’s aims. This power led to laws like the Online Gambling (Advertising) Regulations 2007 (OGAR).

The important part: whilst these laws and codes regulate the content of these advertisements (e.g. they must be based on fact, no sexual content, not aimed towards under-18s, et cetera), none of them prescribe a limit on the volume or frequency of these adverts.

How is the industry regulating?

However, there have been industry-led efforts to regulate advertisement frequency. The Industry Group for Responsible Gambling (IGRG), co-ordinated by the Betting and Gaming Council (BCG), represents major licenced operators in the UK (e.g. Bet365, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes etc.), and focuses on coordinating socially responsible gambling initiatives, including the Industry Code for Socially Responsible Advertising.

Alongside content guidelines (e.g. 20% of each advert must be devoted to safer gambling messaging), the IGRG introduced the ‘whistle-to-whistle’ ban, preventing gambling ads from airing 5 minutes before kick-off starts to 5 minutes after it finishes. Although the IGRG Code is voluntary, balances exist to ensure compliance: under the LCCP 5.1.8, licensees ‘should follow any relevant industry code of practice on advertising‘, including the aforementioned, to avoid punishment.

But is this enough? The ban targets specific time windows, but ignores ads on late-night TV or digital platforms. So why hasn’t the government stepped in to cap total ad frequency?

Sports Industry = Gambling Industry

Just as betting underpinned the Colosseum’s bloody fights and chariot races in Ancient Rome, the modern sporting industry depends heavily on the payroll of gambling companies.

In Europe, gambling was the most dominant sponsor sector for eight out of the top ten European football leagues in 2023-24, with deals with 42 unique teams valued at $128 million- almost doubling the next sector. In the UK, gambling companies offer 38% more for sponsorship deals compared to other companies, accounting for 15-30% of annual revenue for clubs generally.

Sports broadcasters recoup millions in revenue through airing gambling ads. Importantly, broadcasters use this source of revenue to fund million-pound rights deals to sporting leagues, which trickle back to clubs.

In sum, sports betting plays a crucial role in upholding the live-broadcast sports industry, supporting clubs directly through sponsorship deals, and indirectly through deals with broadcasters and leagues. Therefore, regulators may be reluctant to limit frequency for fear of destabilising a pillar of British culture and past-time.

Individual efforts to go against the grain by limiting ad frequency has had potentially disastrous results. Sky, who earned £200m a year through gambling advertisements, limited gambling advertisements to one sport per commercial break in 2018, leading to a drop in revenue in 2019 by 18.2%. This suggests that without coordinated or state-led action, such efforts may not be financially viable.

Industry lobbying

It’s a tale as old as time. Lobbying is the process in which business and trade associations influence laws and public policy in ways that serve their commercial interests. The gambling sector is one of the UK’s most powerful lobbying groups, cultivating ties with MPs and offering lavish hospitality.

Government MPs disclosed over £235,000 worth of gifts, hospitality and salary from gambling companies between December 2020 and April 2023, including tickets to Ascot, Euro 2020 matches and Brit Awards. This figure excludes gifts costing under £300, which needn’t be declared. During the Government’s gambling review in 2020, there was a tenfold increase in the amount of gifts and hospitality declared by MPs, suggesting intense lobbying during periods of scrutiny.

In 2023, Conservative MP Philip Davies personally lobbied ministers to reduce regulations on behalf of a London-based casino. Davis, who is a Vice Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Betting and Gaming, declared £57,000 in hospitality from a flagship gambling holding company, writing multiple letters to lawmakers urging them to give certain casinos preferential terms which remove safeguards for gamblers and increase casino profits. The APPG is a cross-party interest group run by members of the Commons and Lords, involving outside groups to act as a ‘go-between’ between the industry, Parliament and the government.

Following Phillips’ heavy lobbying, the government’s 2023 white paper proposed only limited reforms to the GA 2005, maintaining privileges for high-net-worth foreign gamblers and rejecting calls for stronger ad controls.

The CAP and BCAP codes, although enforced by the ASA, are written by representatives of numerous industries, including broadcasters like Sky and ITV, and receive direct input from the gambling industry’s main body, the Betting & Gaming Council (BCG). In a industry-led, self-regulatory environment, the stalwart revenue gambling companies provide to broadcasters opens the door for undue influence and further preferential rules.

Resultantly, critics point out how industry self-regulation is failing to afford consumers adequate protection, with the vast majority of advertisements aired failing to meet the criteria set by the CAP code.

‘It’s Part of the Culture’

The deluge of gambling adverts is not reducible solely to regulatory gaps. The deep-rooted gambling culture in the UK may play a large role, emboldened by recent global development in liberalised gambling laws.

Gambling culture has historically played a large part in the British zeitgeist for centuries, possessing a long history, from the Betting and Gaming Act 1960 legalising betting shops, to the National Lottery, world-renowned horse races, and globally dominant online betting firms.

Since the GA 2005, the tone of gambling advertisements began to shift from informative to relatable, comedic and lifestyle-oriented. In March 2023, 48% of UK adults reported gambling in the past four weeks, reflecting the normalization of gambling in everyday life and paving the way for lax advertising rules.

International developments poured fuel on the fire. In 2018, the US Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), effectively permitting state governments to legalise sports betting. This development opened a multi-billion dollar market overnight, attracting UK-based operators like Flutter and Bet365 to the US market in return for immense revenue growth.

Resultantly, this transatlantic relationship fiercely developed UK advertising strategies, offering incentives to consolidate and reinforce gambling’s visibility in the UK market, thus maintaining brand dominance and international competitiveness with the US players’ aggressive marketing tactics.

With the advent of social media and digital content, British consumers now bear witness to intense gambling marketing across US-led sports, like the UFC, as well as pop-culture icons, like live-streamers and Youtubers. Such normalisation has only emboldened UK-based gambling companies to pour more money into reaching UK consumers. Lacking clear public outcry, lawmakers are not rushing to solve the problem.

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…So what now?

UK gambling participation is at a historic high. Although reforms have addressed how ads look, they’ve done little about how many we see.

Whilst the ‘whistle-to-whistle’ ban is a agreeable compromise between gambling companies and their confederates in Parliament, this neglects the multiple marketing channels gambling companies penetrate, whether it be pitch-side, hoardings, shirts, or especially online, where 80% of gambling marketing takes place.

Regulatory bodies like the APPG are too entangled with industry interests to drive meaningful reform. Some headway is being made through individual efforts: the 20 clubs in the Premier League have voluntarily opted to ban gambling sponsors on the front of match-day shirts, limiting potential exposure.

However, piecemeal efforts like this are likely insufficient. Gambling companies, on average, pay 38% above the market rate for front-of-shirt sponsorships, cutting out millions in potential revenue for clubs, sullying the economic viability of self-led efforts. Reports point out how front-of-shirt logos account for less than 10% of gambling advertisements seen during matches, with sleeve logos, pitchside branding and sponsorships in full steam.

With such efforts described as ‘tokenism at best’, it’s clear that a comprehensive, far-reaching legislative reform is needed to make consequential headway in this issue.

It is unlikely an outright ban for gambling messages in live-broadcast sports will succeed, as is being debated in countries like Brazil, given the firm entrenchment gambling has in politics, business and the public psyche. However, it’s clear that some efforts must be made by Parliament to address the quantity of gambling-related ads on TV and online- a clear one being limiting the amount of ads airable in a given time frame, or in certain time frames on social media.