Premier league bans gambling sponsors

7/31/2026 at 1:03:29 PM

Same happened in Italy, so all betting sites turned into "news" site so you would have teams being spored by "betting_company_name news". Useless. There's a proposal to be back to previous type of sponsorship.

by raffa667

8/1/2026 at 6:07:44 AM

This argument matches a HN (and IT world) idea that the law is algorithmic or autistic. If Italy's government wanted to enforce that law, I'm sure they could.

If the law banned selling beer without a license, you can't sell a pen for $20 and include a free six pack, claiming 'I'm just selling pens!'. Regulatory agencies, prosecutors, and judges aren't idiots, and neither is your lawyer.

by mmooss

7/31/2026 at 3:01:46 PM

Same with the drinks companies, they switched to explicitly advertising their zero alcohol beers.

by arpinum

7/31/2026 at 3:13:15 PM

It just now clicked with me why they are doing that. I've been wondering why they are pushing them so hard. Barely anyone seems to buy NA beer.

by bragr

7/31/2026 at 3:28:24 PM

I imagine like many things, market penetration is uneven.

I have a subscription for NA beers, my friends and I drink them when out and about, etc. We're young-ish Americans in New York, I suppose the news says we drink a lot less than previous generations.

by zvorygin

7/31/2026 at 3:44:36 PM

I'm not saying the market doesn't exist, just that the marketing never seemed to match the size of the market. It's the old dirty open secret of the alcohol industry that their market was never really social drinkers, and I've just never seen the equivalent consumer regularly going through multiple 6 packs of NA beer a week.

by bragr

7/31/2026 at 9:51:37 PM

Last big social event I went to a few weeks ago, the coolers were packed with Athletic Brewing and Liquid Death along with a few off-brands of flavored sparkling water.

Post pandemic, in my little bubble at least, I almost never see people drinking beer anymore.

by jarjoura

8/3/2026 at 3:52:05 AM

I notice a big shift in my social circles the last few years. Non alcholic beer has gained a lot of popularity. I was advised by my doctor not to drink more than one beer a week due to an health issue O was having, and I was a little worried about the social implications, especially in places where I did not want to talk about my health. Hardly anyone noticed or cared that I went for non alcoholic beers for a year.

by evandijk70

8/1/2026 at 8:32:39 AM

Since I became a parent I've started buying nonalcoholic beer fairly often. It certainly helps that they've gotten A LOT better in the last 5-10 years.

by stefanfisk

7/31/2026 at 11:19:41 PM

> Barely anyone seems to buy NA beer.

Not true around me. They are pretty popular. And I stopped drinking them few years ago, when I realized I drink 5-6 a day and it is probably too much.

by watwut

8/1/2026 at 5:42:15 PM

I don't go to a lot of parties, but at the parties I do go to I'm starting to see non-alcoholic beers become a regular thing. From none, to one variety, to two...

Seeing NA beers at a party that also has an open bar is neat.

by terribleperson

8/2/2026 at 7:28:39 AM

Do grocery stores sell them? If so, people buy them.

Do they add more choices over time? If so, they sell well.

by tomjen3

8/1/2026 at 6:03:32 AM

That might be considered an intended result of the rule - encouraging more non-alcoholic drinking.

by mmooss

8/1/2026 at 3:59:09 PM

Norway banned alcohol advertisements in 1975. Companies similarly tried to get around by advertising by using water bottles, or merchandise, so they the law was amended in 1997 to ban those, which seems to have been successful.

by BobAliceInATree

7/31/2026 at 6:01:11 PM

That is in response to an actual trend. Alcohol has fallen out of favor these last few years.

by nunez

7/31/2026 at 6:39:40 PM

It's a response to laws that prohibit advertising of alcohol in certain countries at certain times of the day. There may be a trend towards these products, but the prohibition prompted the advertising change.

by arpinum

7/31/2026 at 7:01:08 PM

Look at diageo stocks over 5 years, for ex. It is a real trend that people drink less in general: boomers the least, then genz.

by mejutoco

7/31/2026 at 3:38:27 PM

This is genuinely funny. I have to admire the chutzpah.

by stickfigure

8/1/2026 at 9:22:54 AM

Because the premier league introduced this voluntarily rather than in response to specific legislation, I doubt this kind of loophole finding will happen. A team skirting the rules with a technicality will just be called out and punished (and teams will be afraid of that because the league and its brand and the things connected to it, like TV coverage, are worth huge amounts of money)

by dwroberts

7/31/2026 at 1:38:00 PM

Still, better than allowing actual players, which are idols and role models for many young men, to directly promote that filth on-air during and around a match.

by woodpanel

7/31/2026 at 7:57:20 PM

But they allow Leveraged Forex Betting like Everton’s sponsor? This decision has absolutely nothing to do with ethics my friend.

by codeddesign

8/1/2026 at 11:17:41 AM

Putting brokerages in the same category as outright sportsbetting is not making your judgement look good.

by woodpanel

7/31/2026 at 3:44:35 PM

Reminds me of the pokersite .net ads on poker coverage. The .net site was no money play gambling, the .com site they wouldn't mention was real money gambling, probably not legal in your jurisdiction.

by toast0

7/31/2026 at 3:57:33 PM

I was at the World Series of Poker when this change was made.

The major sites had anticipated the decision not to allow sponsorship by "real money" gambling sites and had registered their .net equivalents. Pokerstars.net, fulltiltpoker.net, etc.

.net stickers were printed in dozens of different colours, backgrounds, fonts, and players were instructed to take a .net sticker that most closely matched their branded clothing.

Of course, not everyone had their ducks in a row for the decision, and some of the domain names were still available. An enterprising entrepreneur registered Paddypowerpoker.net, and perhaps others, and turned it into a porn site.

by dmurray

7/31/2026 at 1:08:23 PM

Perhaps they should ban news sites that cover gambling.

by danesparza

7/31/2026 at 1:22:27 PM

it's a cat and mouse thing, but the truth is that there is no will to actually do it, because the party who championed this has since moved to other things, and clubs _want_ the money from betting companies because they're struggling to keep up with other leagues (especially since those sponsors _are_ allowed in other leagues).

by riffraff

7/31/2026 at 2:18:23 PM

"Keep up with other leagues" - is it to pay the top-rated players ?

by donbox

7/31/2026 at 2:29:24 PM

It is. And while it is true that Italian Serie A struggles to be financially competitive with other top leagues, the important "detail" to keep in mind is that no football league is financially competitive with Premier League, and the gap only grows bigger and bigger every year.

Edit: also stadiums, but issues with building new stadiums are often caused by bureaucracy. Also the deals from bettong sites are not that great to be deciding factor of club can build a new stadium or not.

by Vedor

7/31/2026 at 3:21:09 PM

You would think the situation would sort of fix itself over time where premier league ends up being expensive and serie A starts looking like a more attractive deal. E.g. in NBA if you were a billionaire actually seriously interested on winning a championship (many owners aren't, granted), the worst thing you could do is buy the knicks or the lakers. The best thing you could do is buy some small market team for an order of magnitude or two lower price and then just dump the rest of your cash into securing contracts with the best players and coaches available. Plus most of europe is on the same or similar time zone. And there is the whole champions league where many european fans are already used to following teams out of these other leagues.

by asdff

8/1/2026 at 6:18:49 AM

If you buy a cheap Italian club and spend a ton of money you will do well in the national league and go to the UEFA champions league.

But the amount of money a random premier league team gets for their league is tenfold, so you still will struggle to compete.

This is one of the reasons there's a handful of non-premier league teams that have reached the UEFA champions league final in the last 10-20 years, while in the 80s you had random teams from all europe winning the Champion's Cup.

Concentration of wealth without NBA-inspired salary caps is self reinforcing and killing European footbal.

by riffraff

8/1/2026 at 11:28:41 AM

This is the hypocrisy of the football fans.

They absolutely hate how football is a business but they want the 100 million eurodollar striker!

by TitaRusell

8/1/2026 at 6:12:08 AM

Players wages, players price and fees to various intermediaries which have bubbled up through the years, yeah.

by riffraff

7/31/2026 at 2:29:05 PM

Party!!!

by randysalami

7/31/2026 at 2:15:32 PM

It is easy enough to ban obvious workaraounds as well if the will to do it is there.

by ahartmetz

7/31/2026 at 12:16:19 PM

Title doesn't appear to be entirely accurate - it would seem they can still have gambling sponsors but can only wear their logos on the sleeves and training kit.

by Hugsbox

7/31/2026 at 12:29:08 PM

It's a step in the right direction, and at this point I'm happy for every improvement we get in our current gambling hellscape.

by InsideOutSanta

7/31/2026 at 12:36:27 PM

100% agree, it's a great step, the title is just misleading.

by Hugsbox

7/31/2026 at 1:48:13 PM

Same needs to happen in the US with our sports leagues.

Then we need to make it something you can only do while physically present at a sports book.

I feel so sorry for the recovering gambling addicts who want to watch a game these days. You hit rock bottom, you put in the work, you start to pick yourself back up, and some d-bag starts blasting ads for gambling on your phone at every opportunity.

by lenerdenator

7/31/2026 at 1:58:25 PM

You're asking the US to do what is un-American.

American culture is deeply individualistic. From a cultural perspective, a person who fails in their recovery from addiction is seen, ultimately, as being responsible for their failure. They'd typically be criticized for being weak and undisciplined, even if the fake kindness of American culture prevents most people from saying that out loud.

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 3:44:31 PM

"You're asking the US to do what is un-American. American culture is deeply individualistic."

Americas have had no problem with blue laws historically [1], which are laws about what can be done on Sunday largely connected to religious observations, as well as laws on "vice" and entire vice police [2] organizations.

It is no contradiction of individualism, and arguably a strong expression of it, to ensure that anything that can diminish individualism or directly attacks it also needs to be regulated. Heavy drugs, gambling, loot boxes, there's a whole variety of things that humanity has learned the hard way have a tendency to enslave those who indulge in them, and legally banning or constraining those things is perfectly in line with a philosophy of legal empowerment of the individual.

We also have a loooot of ways that people having problems with addictions can reach out for help. There is some truth to the idea that we have moved in the direction of being less willing to force that help on people, and some criticisms to be made there, but then, there were historically reasons for that shift as well that need to be incorporated into any holistic opinion of the situation.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_law

[2]: https://thelegalguide.org/what-is-vice-police-what-is-their-...

by jerf

7/31/2026 at 6:15:22 PM

The laws you're pointing to are just the other side of the same coin.

The Protestant roots of the US are arguably one of the reasons American culture is so heavily focused on individual responsibility and the idea that people who are addicts are weak and undisciplined.

https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/07/history-addiction-arden...

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 6:53:49 PM

I think you're just stretching because it ruined your point and you refuse to admit it. I can't think of a bigger disproof of your point that Americans just let people do whatever and experience the consequences then applying the full force of law to banning the various things that are known to just hurt people without bringing anybody any gain like the hard drugs or, at least until recently, gambling.

What more is America supposed to do to remove this individual freedom from people? There is no bigger stick than the law.

by jerf

7/31/2026 at 7:28:28 PM

I think you just don't get it.

Individualism doesn't require a society free from rules, with every person allowed to do whatever they want.

The Protestant and Calvinist roots of American culture emphasize individual moral agency and personal accountability. This makes it easy to view things like addiction as a personal moral failure or lack of discipline rather than a systemic or biological illness.

At the same time, these same Protestant and Calvinist roots supported a level of paternalism in the form of blue laws, temperance movements, vice squads, etc.

You are arguing that laws regulating "sin", which are intended to promote public virtue, are evidence that the US really isn't individualistic because they're (in principle) taking away your ability to do whatever you want, but what you're missing is that criminalization contributes to the widely-held belief among Americans that people who break those laws are weak, undisciplined people making bad choices.

Most Americans don't view "sin" laws as social welfare. They view them as moral boundaries, and when someone crosses them (say, into addiction), the default is to place the blame on the individual's own willpower. You chose to do drugs. You got addicted because you couldn't control yourself. You failed at recovery because you're undisciplined.

This is pervasive in the US and it even extends to issues like poverty. Three-quarters of Republicans and over half of independents believe that personal choices are a major reason people are poor.

https://thehill.com/business/economy/5495065-americans-perso...

Which reminds me of one of Kurt Vonnegut's most insightful observations about American culture:

> America is the wealthiest nation on Earth, but its people are mainly poor, and poor Americans are urged to hate themselves. To quote the American humorist Kin Hubbard, 'It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be.' It is in fact a crime for an American to be poor, even though America is a nation of poor. Every other nation has folk traditions of men who were poor but extremely wise and virtuous, and therefore more estimable than anyone with power and gold. No such tales are told by the American poor. They mock themselves and glorify their betters. The meanest eating or drinking establishment, owned by a man who is himself poor, is very likely to have a sign on its wall asking this cruel question: 'if you’re so smart, why ain’t you rich?' There will also be an American flag no larger than a child’s hand – glued to a lollipop stick and flying from the cash register.

> Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue. Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say Napoleonic times. Many novelties have come from America. The most startling of these, a thing without precedent, is a mass of undignified poor. They do not love one another because they do not love themselves.

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 2:34:41 PM

It was very American to restrict gambling, especially sports gambling, to very few physical locations until 2018.

The government of the state of New Jersey argued that the federal government should not be able to restrict states from allowing gambling, and the Supreme Court agreed, so now there are no limits since all the states compete with each other in a race to the bottom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_v._National_Collegiate_...

Even though this ruling would indicate that the federal government has no right to regulate things like cannabis consumption, 8 years later, the federal government still has the “right” to charge you with myriad felonies that should only be up to the states. So this is really all about money and power instead of principles.

by lotsofpulp

7/31/2026 at 3:54:46 PM

NASCAR no longer pursues the Winston cup, because tobacco advertising is banned.

The Bud Bowl was discontinued becsause alcohol advertising is regulated.

World Poker Tour was sponsored by (poker site).net instead of .com because advertising a real money poker site was unacceptable. I haven't watched in a long time, I dunno what their ads are like now.

Restricting advertising is very American.

by toast0

7/31/2026 at 6:10:38 PM

> ...because tobacco advertising is banned.

Except that it isn't: https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tobacco-indus...

And let's not talk about how the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement had the perverse effect of making states financially dependent on tobacco sales. The annual payouts fluctuate based on cigarette shipment volumes so states want tobacco sales to continue. If tobacco sales stop, the states stop getting checks.

Most of the revenue goes to general fund deficits, infrastructure development, etc., not tobacco prevention and healthcare. And a bunch of states even securitized their future settlement payout revenue so that they could get money immediately.

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 7:20:16 PM

> Except that it isn't

Your link includes bans on tv, transit, billboards, sponsorships, tobacco branding on non-tobacco items, etc.

Yes, there are a few venues where tobacco advertising is still permitted, but they can't sponsor a soccer team.

by toast0

7/31/2026 at 7:30:50 PM

> ...but they can't sponsor a soccer team.

And? Tobacco companies spend more than $8 billion/year on marketing in the US. Advertising is not banned, and unless you think these billion-dollar companies (that states perversely depend on for revenue) are run by idiots, that money is producing ROI.

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 7:50:31 PM

The topic is banning certain types of sponsors from soccer teams. Someone said it's unamerican, but tobacco is an example of a banned sponsor for soccer teams. Gambling could just as easily be banned from sponsoring sports.

by toast0

7/31/2026 at 8:32:21 PM

Did you even read the article?

> Despite the front-of-shirt prohibition, gambling brands are still permitted to maintain a visual presence in the Premier League through shirt sleeve sponsorships or training kit branding, as demonstrated by Betano's new deals.

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 2:16:06 PM

The 18th amendment disagrees. While there is a large "your own fault" for things like this, there is also a large "you shouldn't be allowed to do some stupid things".

by bluGill

7/31/2026 at 3:30:38 PM

While your assessment may be true, I don’t think the mere ratification of the amendment makes the argument. It’s much more complicated.

The passing of the 18th was done through a highly organized and motivated cross-party political bloc that would throw an election to punish anyone that did not align with the dry agenda. This stacked the representative government in their favor, even if it did not match actual sentiment in their state.

The repeal of the amendment however, was by vote and 73% of voters favored the repeal.

by antiterra

7/31/2026 at 5:18:21 PM

By your numbers 27% did not. Already that is a significant minority. There are an unknown number in your 73% that support things like the amendment, but not that particular one.

Speaking as an American only a tiny number are really the hard core individualists that OP is trying to reduce is to. The majority have inclinations that way but their beliefs are much more complex and cannot be reduced that far.

by bluGill

7/31/2026 at 6:17:12 PM

> Speaking as an American only a tiny number are really the hard core individualists that OP is trying to reduce is to.

I'm an American who has lived abroad for many years and married into a less individualistic/more collectivist culture.

It's very easy to see how individualistic the US is comparatively speaking when you get the opportunity to step outside it.

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 2:37:51 PM

Citing the 18th Amendment, which not only failed to stop the sale of alcoholic beverages but led to the creation of a massive black market, as a rebuttal to the fact that America is a highly individualistic culture in which people are largely considered responsible for their inability to regulate their own behavior, is very strange.

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 5:23:41 PM

The US is a highly individualist society in which groups of individuals love to tell those outside their group what they can and cannot do.

by brewdad

7/31/2026 at 2:46:52 PM

The 18th amendment proves that were are not that individualistic. If we were we never would have passed it.

The 18th amendment didn't stop the sale of alcohol, but it greatly reduced those sales. It did lead to a black market, but it overall did succeed in the aims of the supporters even if it wasn't perfect. Of course the supporters were not as numerous as they thought they were and so it was rolled back.

by bluGill

7/31/2026 at 3:10:24 PM

> The 18th amendment proves that were are not that individualistic.

And did the 13th Amendment prove that there was no racism in America? Does the 2nd Amendment prove that all Americans love guns?

The US is one of the most individualistic societies in the world. There is a significant amount of qualitative and quantitative research about this. Hofstede's cultural dimensions is probably the most popular "scoring" of this, but it's hardly the only reference.

There's a reason the idea of "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" originated in the US. If you've spent any time living abroad, especially in more collectivist societies (like those in Asia), you'd know how farcical it is to hold up the 18th Amendment as proof the US is not individualistic.

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 4:03:35 PM

Most individualist yes. However it isn't perfect 100%

by bluGill

7/31/2026 at 4:14:27 PM

So then you're arguing that "the US isn't that individualistic, as compared to a society that doesn't exist."

by ElProlactin

7/31/2026 at 4:39:20 PM

The original argument was the USA is that society that we have now agreed doesn't exist.

by bluGill

7/31/2026 at 6:03:01 PM

Nothing in your comments refutes what I wrote:

> American culture is deeply individualistic. From a cultural perspective, a person who fails in their recovery from addiction is seen, ultimately, as being responsible for their failure. They'd typically be criticized for being weak and undisciplined, even if the fake kindness of American culture prevents most people from saying that out loud.

If you want a stunning, quantitative example, here you go:

https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/news/guiding-principles-addre...

> Many Americans view poor individual choices/lack of discipline as the cause of opioid addiction:

> 78% of Americans believe people who are addicted to prescription opioids are, themselves, to blame for the problem.

> 72% believe that people addicted to prescription opioids lack self-discipline.

This is despite the fact that the opioid epidemic was driven by pharma companies employing aggressive marketing and false safety claims to get doctors to overprescribe painkillers.

https://alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu/the-four-sentence-letter-...

And yet large numbers of Americans (a significant majority according to the above) still blame opioid addiction on the individuals.

You can see the same general philosophy applied to issues like poverty and homelessness.

https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/most-us-a...

by ElProlactin

8/1/2026 at 11:34:19 AM

Nah the US went after prescription drugs pretty hard.

Even Americans can't fully deny they live in a society.

by TitaRusell

8/1/2026 at 4:58:02 AM

Yeah like the time they banned alcohol

by ozgrakkurt

7/31/2026 at 2:40:08 PM

> and some d-bag starts blasting ads for gambling on your phone at every opportunity.

Or crypto. Which tweaks many of the same nerve endings.

by dofm

7/31/2026 at 3:20:00 PM

They turned themselves into whores for sale to the highest bidder. I imagine if they could, cocaine brands would be on everyone's shirts and tattoo's on players foreheads.

Silly people still care about this crap.

by bastard_op

7/31/2026 at 4:05:46 PM

Gambling feeds on human misery, it should never be normalized, they made the right decision.

by peter_retief

7/31/2026 at 10:02:59 PM

Wouldn't the real solution be to work on making life less miserable for the working class?

by tacocataco

8/1/2026 at 4:58:36 AM

Yes. One way to do so is by eradicating gambling (or at least the ads for it).

People will never be 100% happy, all the time. And gambling (like many other companies) prey on people in the moments where they feel down.

by jojomodding

7/31/2026 at 12:03:44 PM

If I'm squeezing enough margin out of my customers that I can afford to sponsor a football team with some of the leftover cash then you probably don't want to deal with me.

by fancyfredbot

8/1/2026 at 1:14:19 PM

I think about that every time I walk into a bank with an elaborate building or a ton of staff hanging around.

by tengbretson

7/31/2026 at 1:30:05 PM

True enough, but they become Patrons of the Arts in a sense.

by the_sleaze_

8/1/2026 at 5:01:24 AM

Football was doing fine before this all started. It just multiplied the wages of some people who already earn more per year than I will ever own in a lifetime.

by jojomodding

7/31/2026 at 1:50:39 PM

on the other hand, do you know how much it costs to sponsor?

maybe it's relatively cheap, but nobody does it because football fans isn't that of a target

by NooneAtAll3

7/31/2026 at 2:14:14 PM

I don't know about this sport, but in other large sports it can costs millions per year to be a sponsor.

by bluGill

7/31/2026 at 2:34:41 PM

It varies, but in any case, I doubt it's cheap relative to much: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_sponsorship

by dfxm12

7/31/2026 at 10:54:18 PM

About half of those kit numbers are less per year than a single 30 second ad during the superbowl.

by Avshalom

8/1/2026 at 4:14:20 PM

That's a little dishonest. The prices are in Pounds, and there a significant high outliers.

Superbowl ads currently average around $8m USD (£5.93m).

by malnourish

8/1/2026 at 11:34:57 PM

You're right, only about half of them are less than £5.93m with one of them being almost the same.

by Avshalom

7/31/2026 at 6:22:17 AM

> and three clubs (Sunderland, Nottingham Forest, and Chelsea) currently without a front-of-shirt sponsor as a direct or indirect consequence.

Chelsea not having a front of shirt sponsor is completely unrelated. Their last sponsor was Three (the phone company) ant that was 2023 or so

by 7777777phil

7/31/2026 at 1:33:56 PM

Finally! There is no worse scourge on society. Bookies are parasites.

by clickety_clack

7/31/2026 at 1:12:45 PM

they literally did not though? just cant have it front and center on the shirt. its like a slow march towards a higher moral ground

by altmanaltman

7/31/2026 at 1:40:00 PM

Unless they stop blasting the ads aimed at international markets e.g. "Premier Chinese Gaming Partner" around all the boards in the game this is very small fry in practice.

by physicsguy

7/31/2026 at 12:46:54 PM

Everton to be deducted 9 points.

Even though we moved Stake to the sleeves this year.

by tclancy

7/31/2026 at 1:42:08 PM

I think sports gambling should be legal _and regulated_, just like a lot of other vices, and one of those regulations _absolutely has to be_ a complete firewall between sports betting and the business of sports. No sponsorship deals with players, stadiums, teams, leagues, broadcasts, anything else related to sports. We banned tobacco advertising, and that had tremendously positive societal results without banning tobacco.

Yes, that will make it harder for them to connect to customers and _that is the point_.

by empath75

7/31/2026 at 1:48:33 PM

Sports gambling in the UK has been legal for a long time. I remember as a kid the bookies (shops where you had to go to make a bet) weren’t allowed any exterior windows and all looked absolutely grim. It was an appropriate barrier to have to cross in order to gamble. But today’s online gambling has broken all that down. It’s too accessible.

by afavour

7/31/2026 at 1:50:33 PM

Again, there's a lot of nuance here that has been beautifully articulated to great comic effect 40 years ago - and very little has changed regarding the aims, motives and consequences.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0074qvc Yes Prime Minister, Season 1 Episode 3 'The Smoke Screen'

The Proposal: Health minister Dr. Peter Thorn proposes a total ban on all cigarette advertising, point-of-sale displays, and sports sponsorship, alongside massive tax hikes.

The Conflict: Sir Humphrey Appleby defends the tobacco industry, arguing that smokers are "national benefactors" because tobacco tax funds the National Health Service and early deaths save the state money on pensions.

The Motive: Prime Minister Jim Hacker backs the anti-smoking campaign not purely for health, but as a clever diversion and weapon to force the Treasury to concede on his separate plans for tax cut

by piltdownman

7/31/2026 at 12:51:17 PM

unclear if the article says that prediction markets are gambling, otherwise this is a massive loophole

by htrp

7/31/2026 at 3:58:35 PM

Long overdue. Seeing this in sports the past few years has been so odd.

by j45

7/31/2026 at 2:42:41 PM

Finally! I hope these betting sites will vanish.

by MilkingCowboy49

7/31/2026 at 2:45:04 PM

Wanna bet?

by hackeraccount

7/31/2026 at 2:48:39 PM

Absolutely not! But I’m happy to predict…

by whoamii

7/31/2026 at 3:01:58 PM

I bet your prediction, whatever it is, will be accurate!

by shermantanktop

7/31/2026 at 1:30:27 PM

I am surprised.

Why? well The Uk has two main parties, one of which runs gambling as a way to raise funds...

https://lottery.conservatives.com

by TheqO

7/31/2026 at 1:59:52 PM

I'm british.

The way that gambling companies target the poorest of society feels disgustingly predatory.

You can often tell the average income of an area based on how many betfreds and paddy powers there are on the high street.

by dijit

7/31/2026 at 4:08:05 PM

Before leaving Britain, I lived in an area that had a ~50% poverty rate. The number of betting shops, small and large brands, just on the local high street alone was ridiculous. It reduced somewhat as gambling has moved online, however there is clearly still money to be made in bricks and mortar gambling.

by rorylawless

7/31/2026 at 5:26:13 PM

New Labour did that with gambling deregulation.

Betting shops have begun to disappear not just because of moving online, but because regulations have finally limited the pernicious power of the fixed-odds betting terminal (FOBT). They were so disgustingly, vampirically profitable they were reason alone to open betting shops in small premises; two members of staff and four FOBTs and any small shop rakes it in. Now they finally do not make enough profit for that to be worth it.

Oddly, betting shops aren't in any planning categories and AFAIK never have been, so whenever you see one, it was specifically and individually approved. Which should tell you a thing or two about the uncomfortable overlap between small-scale commercial landlords and councillors.

by dofm

8/1/2026 at 5:35:06 PM

> Which should tell you a thing or two about the uncomfortable overlap between small-scale commercial landlords and councillors.

Hah, like in my town, where they are so in bed with each other their families and kids go on vacation together.

And then they approve waterfront developments on the side of hills that failed ecological testing and failed traffic assessments (in this case that the local roads could not support the traffic load -and- because of the topology there was no room to increase traffic capacity and the closest you'd be able to do would be eminent-domain'ing ~200 homes to widen a road out to an arterial, for the benefit of the 450 new units. I'd better not give them ideas...)

And the local newspaper is so in bed with both that when this approval was announced, the article in the paper mentioned all the opponents by name, got a tepid comment from the town, but couldn't bring themselves once to name the developer (You can find out who it is of course, but the newspaper won't help you, even while publishing their artists renderings).

And

by FireBeyond

7/31/2026 at 2:17:42 PM

Blimey. This surprised me. But I see Labour also run one.

I suspect more influential is gambling industry lobbying and sinecures.

by Biologist123

7/31/2026 at 2:23:43 PM

Except that — and I say this as a centre-left sort of person — almost none of this is the Conservatives' fault. Essentially all of the UK's gambling hellscape was triggered by massive deregulation by Tony Blair's first New Labour government from 1997, and subsequent governments have struggled to undo it.

UK political donations big enough to win a campaign used to be quite hard to come by. The big single donor money was in alcohol, tobacco or gambling.

(The big single-donor money now, clearly, is crypto, though the tories take vape industry money.)

Alcohol industry giants like Diageo tend to be politically neutral because they know that really any government could change the law on health grounds. The tobacco giants, at the time, wanted to hold back inevitable regulatory change and backed the Tories — Maggie Thatcher had been a Philip Morris consultant.

That left Blair talking to wealthy donors from the gambling industry pushing for widespread deregulation of a modernised, increasingly digital industry. He took the cash where the Tories would not.

Successive governments have been trying to claw back from what that decision (combined with a subsequent gambling taxation change) caused. Long term, it has been worse for the UK than any other single Blair policy and it has fully undone many community and health policies he introduced because it allowed the creation of the Fixed Odds Betting Terminal (FOBT), for example: a development so rapacious and predatory it makes drug dealers look like amateurs.

It has been very difficult to undo because the deregulation was so massive in scope, and as tobacco tax revenue collapsed after Blair's broadly successful tobacco regulation, the government became increasingly dependent on enormous gambling tax revenue to replace it (including, specifically, FOBT tax revenue).

So as much as I would like to blame the Tory government that followed for not doing enough — and they did not do enough, even when presented with clear evidence of FOBT harm — their hands were mostly tied.

by dofm

7/31/2026 at 4:06:34 PM

Not surprising. Brits loooove lotteries. On every scale. My year abroad in the UK, in every social event I attended organized by a student society there would inevitably be left-over budget, which would be taken care of by.. a raffle. Some of these raffles could take 30 min (on an event that lasted ~3 hours). And people would be incredibly excited about it.. Really boggles my mind

by Phemist

7/31/2026 at 5:00:43 PM

I would be wary of generalising from British student society culture to wider British culture.

But we would (IMO correctly) observe that while raffles and lotteries are both technically a form of gambling, a raffle is not really a lottery in the conventional sense; it tends to form a more specific social function because there's usually an array of cheap, fun, often slightly absurd prizes from local donors, the prize is not money or a truly high-value thing, they aren't rolling, weekly events, they tend to be all-ages etc.

It largely emerges out of British church fête culture. British churches are usually poor, not rich, so a raffle was a way for the vicar to gently shake down local businesses for a set of cheap prizes in return for some gentle advertising and showing off, and a way to get more local small donors and word-of-mouth because you're gently socially shamed into taking and distributing a book of raffle tickets. School communities do it — for much the same reason — just substitute head teacher for vicar.

Also the raffle is at the end of the event, so people stay to the end (when Britishness would otherwise see us leaving early)!

You have to understand that the naffness of a raffle is very distinct from the brassy, brash idea of a lottery. People groan at the naffness and then take part anyway because it's harmless. Raffles are crap, but they are community crap.

(Like the old-fashioned "Beetle drive" fundraiser which is essentially a form of bingo.)

You can't really draw a line from the typical social raffle to lottery participation or gambling. Lotteries, raffles, bingo halls, sports betting, online game gambling, all look superficially similar but they aren't (despite the gambling companies' efforts) really the same constituencies.

Apart from that, I don't think we're any different to the USA or European countries; we got our National Lottery tradition from the USA and some of our smaller prize lottery companies have been European.

by dofm

7/31/2026 at 5:21:28 PM

Thank you for the additional background! For me as a foreigner coming into the raffle culture, I have no such community associations with the raffles and consider the "naffness" rather more obnoxious. Once I found out that it basically was a staple at these social events, I would act British and leave early ;). That it is related to Church Fete makes the conversative party <-> lottery link all the less surprising!

by Phemist

7/31/2026 at 5:36:55 PM

We do have a rather unusual relationship with naffness in this country! It's very difficult to explain :-)

New Zealand also has the same sort of church/community raffle culture, I gather; very much an export.

The Conservatives did start the National Lottery in the 90s and it definitely tried to hang off the "good causes" thing, but as I detailed in another overlong comment, much of the UK's more disturbing gambling trends were caused by subsequent deregulations enacted by the subsequent (New) Labour government.

by dofm

7/31/2026 at 5:53:01 PM

It also explains the UK representatives for Eurovision in the last.. say 25 years (except Sam Rider in 2022). I've wondered if e.g. this year's very very naff send-in (Eins, Zwei, Drei (although, that was not an R)) was a deliberate attempt at an FU to the eurovision, or rather a genuine attempt that would speak to the populace. I'm leaning towards the latter now.

by Phemist

7/31/2026 at 6:37:44 PM

Not a deliberate FU, for sure. Sam Battle simply would not do that. I thought it was both fun and funny. But it was earnest and playful at the same time.

For us Eurovision is simply not something that registers as a serious thing; the years where it has been non-cheesy are few and far between. As a nation we find much (non-scandinavian, at least) Europop quite cheesy, with only a couple of exceptions.

Winning it earnestly is not something that happens when we try, and perhaps will not ever happen again. Europeans simply don't like us enough!

The last time we won was a rare moment in our recent history; literally two days before, a Europhile left-wing government led by a prime minister who spoke French fluently and counted a legendary flamenco guitarist as his friend had just won a landslide, and we entered a band that had already been famous with a pretty basic, stadium rock song. So it was a combination of happenstance and European proxy politics again.

So we enter fun things that better express how we feel about it. Europop often comes across as cheesy but the LMNC entry was out of love for it, not loathing.

We would, TBH, rather win it for something fun like this than win it for something serious. And I think Ireland shows you what happens if you train the big guns on the thing; repeatedly winning Eurovision nearly bankrupted RTÉ, as far as I recall.

FWIW my feeling is that we should quit Eurovision (if the EBU do not end it). Its time has past and it will not survive its current form.

by dofm

7/31/2026 at 4:49:23 PM

Gambling on sports is the only field in which you can make money by having people think the opposite of what you think and you have a deadline by which the market has to resolve so you can avoid going bankrupt in the long wait for market to reconcile with reality as it happens in the stock market .

Bookies are bad they find ways to avoid paying all the times, exchanges are good

And the act itself , meaning wagering on athletes competing is almost as old as sex and prostitution and all the hopes to regulate it into submission are just as idiotic.

by JumpinJack_Cash

8/1/2026 at 12:44:31 PM

RIP Stoke City.

by calini

7/31/2026 at 4:07:58 PM

Fantastic news!

by viqash12

7/31/2026 at 7:54:02 AM

Unfortunately this means crypto will just take over completely.

by nly

7/31/2026 at 11:33:46 AM

Crypto is less worse than gambling and sports bets.

by xinayder

8/1/2026 at 6:57:30 PM

...and prices are not that high currently, also transaction volume on most exchanges is by far near a peak...

by KellyCriterion

7/31/2026 at 4:28:20 PM

How so?

by Synthetic7346

7/31/2026 at 5:17:48 PM

Bets try to engage with the user, crypto ads don't have a call to action or journalists saying "hey you can get X BTC if you bet that there will be a red card in the next 5 minutes".

by xinayder

7/31/2026 at 2:42:19 PM

Finally!

by MilkingCowboy49

7/31/2026 at 7:53:26 PM

“Finance”? Haha Everyone has CMC Markets which has the headline “Trade with leverage..”

What a joke.

by codeddesign

7/31/2026 at 4:07:33 PM

Now do the rest of the football league !

by danw1979

7/30/2026 at 11:42:18 PM

[flagged]

by JumpinJack_Cash

7/31/2026 at 11:19:16 AM

Care to elaborate?

by orphereus

7/31/2026 at 4:48:40 AM

sports gambling? yeah it is

by whateveracct

7/31/2026 at 1:47:19 PM

Aramco was the most prominent sponsor in the World Cup, and Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan owns Man City and was subject to a campaign calling on the English Premier League to hold Mansour to account for the UAE's role in the war in Sudan.

Shades of grey, but I'll take the gambling companies any day of the week.

by piltdownman

7/31/2026 at 6:06:35 PM

It doesn’t have to be an either/or. Neither is an option, too.

by dghlsakjg

7/31/2026 at 2:11:06 PM

Gambling companies prey on teenagers with disgusting tactics. They are just as devoid of human decency.

by dagurp