A Cautionary Tale For Marketers

By Brian Cullingworth, Last updated Jan 12, 2018

Be sensitive to youth and gambling concerns

Several English Premier League football clubs found themselves unexpectedly (and negatively) under the Sunday Times spotlight this week in an issue around youth and gambling that could have been avoided with more sensitivity to a public environment in which youthful gambling has become a major issue.

The UK Gambling Commission, anti-gambling groups and the British mainstream media have become increasingly vociferous in recent months on the dangers of “luring” the young into gambling, condemning those that are allegedly complicit in this threat, including operator marketers, game designers, PR firms, general advertisers…and now, apparently, sponsored football clubs.

It all started innocently enough with marketers at online gambling-sponsored clubs like Newcastle United, Stoke City, Swansea City and West Ham United posting images of junior team players wearing the strip or sporting the logos of sponsors.

But it triggered a Sunday Mail scrutiny and a negative interpretation of the images as promoting gambling to the young; the clubs were sufficiently concerned at the fall-out to remove the images, claiming that they had been posted unintentionally and in error.

The warnings have been clear, and marketers as well as promoters and game designers need to be aware of the increased scrutiny by critical eyes on virtually everything they conceive.

Brian Cullingworth

Infopowa news was a staple of Casinomeister’s news from 2000 until 2019. Brian Cullingworth was the main writer, contributor, and was one of the most knowledgeable persons I have ever known involved in the online casino industry.

We first met in January 2001 at the ICE in London where I observed him going booth to booth interviewing online casino, software, and licensing jurisdiction representatives. Brian was also heavily involved with our forum as “Jetset“, he was involved as an informal consultant to eCOGRA, the OPA, and was a player advocate who assisted countless aggrieved players with his connections to industry folks. He also published “Casino Cautions” via Infopowa news for quite a number of years. These can be found in our news archives.

His passing in February 2019 was a dark day for us. He will be forever missed.


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