My name is Gary. I am a compulsive gambler. The date of my last bet was 13th September 2019. The above is how I introduce myself at every Gamblers Anonymous meeting I attend. I’m in a ‘good place’ these days and embrace who I am, flaws and all, and lead a very content life.
It hasn’t always been the case though, as the years of crippling addiction (along with the guilt, stress, shame, financial devastation and all the other side-effects of my gambling) took their toll on my health and all aspects of my life.
I’ve lost jobs, lied to friends and family, borrowed and stolen money and damaged relationships beyond repair. I’ve been to rock bottom and it’s a dark, terrifying place to be.
So why am I sharing this via a Sunderland AFC fanzine? Well, last week it was announced that Spreadex would be the Club’s new principal partner ahead of the 2022-23 season.
SAFC and the UK-based financial trading and sports betting firm, had agreed a three-year partnership that will include the Spreadex Sports logo adorning the Club’s home and away shirts until summer 2025.
And my heart sank at the announcement.
Earlier this month, Everton FC confirmed a record deal with Stake.com to replace Cazoo on the front of their shirts from the 2022/23 campaign onwards. More than 20,000 fans signed a petition to reverse that decision.
Crystal Palace FC recently made the decision to drop their Gambling Company sponsor W88, and this also comes at a time when English football's top clubs have been asked by the Premier League, to support a voluntary ban on betting shirt sponsorships.
Furthermore, a group of 20 EFL and non-league clubs have written to the Government urging them to ban all gambling advertising in football. Ministers are currently reviewing gambling laws and are due to publish their proposed reforms, with a ban on betting companies being front-of-shirt sponsors one of the options on the table.
So why are Sunderland AFC ignoring this outside noise and partnering with another Betting company, and why does it actually matter to me and other fans? The obvious answer to the first question, is financial gain. And I completely understand the commercial decision. But the second question is more important - why does it matter to the average Sunderland supporter?
My gambling began with an occasional accumulator on a Saturday afternoon, Sky Super 6 and an odd bet on a SAFC game, but over the years it had manifested into in-play betting for a ‘quick-fix’ and before long I was betting on the number of corners in the first half of a Paraguayan League game at 3am.
Never big stakes or huge losses, but a serious problem, nonetheless. It rapidly escalated beyond repair when I received an email from Paddy Power one day offering 20 free spins on a slot game on their online Casino site. I’d never bet on such a site previously, never played a fruit machine in a pub nor played cards or visited casinos. That wasn’t my ‘thing’.
But those free spins returned £840, which I withdrew the following day. An easy win. A quick win. Perfect. By the end of that week I’d deposited the whole lot back in, along with another £200, as I chased losses and lost myself in a world where I could never recover.
I’ve only scratched the surface of my story here, but I’d lost tens of thousands of pounds in the following years and I was a full-blown addict. My life was a mess and I suffered from depression and a complete lack of self-worth.
When my then partner found a debt letter one day, I confessed to everything and begun to slowly rebuild my life with her support, but the desire to gamble never left me. I went to counselling and self-excluded from all the sites I’d used previously and I relinquished all financial control and responsibility. But it was still there, nagging away in my mind.
That was until August 2019 when I received an email from Betdaq, Sunderland’s shirt sponsor and Betting Partner, offering me a free bet. Deposit £20 and they would give me another £20 free. What came over me, I will never know for sure, but I successfully registered and convinced myself that this would just be used for football bets and no more. I would now remain in control of my betting. Within a couple of days, I was on their own Casino site and I’d accumulated winnings of around £700. When I went to withdraw that money, I discovered a problem. Unbeknownst to me, Betdaq were owned by Ladbrokes (a company I’d previously self-excluded from) and they could not honour my winnings but they agreed to refund my original £20 stake as compensation. Instead of viewing that as breaking even or ‘one of those things’, I viewed it as losing £700. That is how the mind of an addict works. And I needed to recover those losses. Two weeks later I’d borrowed money from friends and family, taken out loans and credit cards and had lost many thousands of pounds, before I received a text asking if I was gambling again.
And I immediately confessed to it all. It was too late to save the job I was working at the time, a great role in my close friend’s company, as my lies and deceit over that period had cost me again. It also partly contributed to the breakdown of my relationship as the financial and emotional strain took its toll.
That was when a friend of mine took me to my first Gambler’s Anonymous Meeting and my recovery began again.
It’s important to state that I do not blame SAFC or Betdaq, or indeed any of these Gambling companies for my demise and I take full responsibility for my actions, but I simply wish to highlight my own plight for those who are not affected by this addiction and do not see the issue with Sunderland’s new shirt sponsor.
By Sunderland AFC agreeing to partner with another Gambling Company for the upcoming Championship Season, they are not just agreeing to a commercially attractive deal, they are partnering with a Company whose whole business model is to target people like me.
Around 65% of profits made by Betting companies are gained from five per cent of gamblers who are already addicted or at risk. They really aren’t interested in your average punter who bets for fun and are in control of their habit.
This is not the same as being sponsored by a Brewery. This is not the same as being sponsored by a Fast Food chain.
This is a partnership with an industry who deliberately target a demographic of the general public, where they are sure to gain from the most. The marketing campaigns are incessant and aimed at the vulnerable. SpreadEx are no different.
They may be pledging to support the Foundation of Light with donations, but the same Foundation housed an NHS Gambling Clinic recently, to help those in our region that have had their lives destroyed by companies such as SpreadEX.
I am not anti-gambling, nor would I wish for gambling to be banned outright, just the same as the alcohol or tobacco industries. But the key difference is how these Betting firms operate and deliberately target football fans.
On average Gambling logos can appear more than 700 times in a single televised football match, be it on shirts, advertising hoardings or TV adverts. The constant drip-feed of offers and promotions are relentless and pray on those like me.
Please do not think for one minute that my Betdaq story is an isolated incident. Nor that the issue of problem gambling is a minor one.
In the UK alone, there are said to be an estimated 2.2 million people that are either problem gamblers or experiencing gambling-related harm. The charity Gambling With Lives points to research that shows there are between 250 and 650 gambling-related suicides in the UK each year. This is a huge problem in society and a huge problem within football. We may be playing in a League that is also sponsored by a Betting Company, but that is out of our control. I also know SAFC is a business and appreciate the difficulty in rejecting lucrative commercial opportunities.
But at a time when many clubs are trying to step away and do the right thing, I can’t help feeling we are damaging any reputation we have as a community club, by chasing a half-decent payday. This wasn’t an all-or-nothing decision. We would still find a shirt sponsor, albeit one that would probably pay less than SpreadEX for the honour.
But some things in business are worth far more than money alone. And I strongly believe this is one of them.
