Digital Betting Platforms Forcing Social Change

According to the Gambling Commission, 52% of online gamblers have used a mobile phone or tablet to bet in the last four weeks. This shows just how accessible betting has become, and it is a far cry from when you had to head to your local betting shop to get a bet on. Now you can sit on your sofa and place a bet in seconds through an app on your mobile device, and it is the easiness in which you can bet that is the driving force behind changes wanted by those who are opposed to gambling.

Recently, members of the Remote Gambling Association which includes Ladbrokes-Coral, William Hill, Bet365 and Paddy Power-Betfair have all agreed to ban sports advertising during live action on TV. The general feeling is that this ruling may have been forced upon them shortly, so they have done something about it themselves before they were forced to. It has been reported that gambling ads were worth around £200 million to broadcasters last year, with Sky taking up a large share of that. They won’t disappear completely, but large chunks will, and that is going to leave a hole in the broadcasters’ pockets.

However, that doesn’t mean that when you switch on the next football match that you won’t see any gambling advertisements. Football and gambling have increasingly come together, and although you won’t see any TV advertisements during the game, you will see those around the pitch offering odds on what will happen next, and of course the logos of bookmakers on shirts as sponsors. Football in particular, and gambling are now rooted deeply together, and because of that when you take one thing out of the way, TV advertisements, in this case, you will simply see more exposure somewhere else.

Gambling splits a lot of people socially, and those who are for gambling will be quick to point out the number of jobs it supports, and the amount of money the industry pays in taxes to the government. There is also the fact that we live in a free society, and people can do as they please with their money.

However, just one case about someone taking their own life due to a gambling addiction completely changes the way that people feel. With social media in place, stories like this can spread quickly, and gain real momentum and in the past, we have seen some very big social media campaigns around big issues. Gambling and the effects of gambling are quickly becoming a subject that is discussed in great detail on social media, and momentum and strength of feeling are rising.

Thanks to the invention of social media, people can come together in a much easier fashion and when they do on issues like this, things tend to snowball and move far quicker. That is exactly what we are seeing happen now with the gambling industry, and that may eventually lead to more changes to protect individuals that need it.