Britain’s betting companies are tempting children into gambling through social media, according to a study by Bristol University and Demos, a cross-party political think tank.
It claims that over 40,000 UK players on Twitter gambling related accounts are under the age of 16. This suggests that around six per cent of players of traditional gambling accounts are children, but that figures goes up to 17 per cent of accounts that are gambling on esports.
The investigation showed that of those replying to esports betting tweets, 28 per cent were children. However, only 0.1per cent of the content carried a warning about the minimum age for gambling.
According to the report, 68 per cent of traditional sports and 74 per cent of esports tweets apparently were in contravention of the regulations by presenting gambling as an income source or by enticing play at unsociable hours.
There was advertising of free bets on Twitter with half of the tweets from gambling accounts related to freer or “matched” bets, understating the risks of betting and too complicated for young players to understand.
The university’s report was funded by GambleAware, a charity. It went on to suggest that there should be more uptake of age-verification technology to keep children away from gambling advertising.
The bookmakers themselves and their affiliates sent an average of 14 tweets every day advertising betting. Josh Smith of Demos is quoted in today’s Daily Telegraph condemning gambling advertisers online. He said that “advertising regulations are being regularly flouted.”
He added: “We hope that this report serves as a call to action, both to technology companies to make it easier for gambling customers to get a clear picture of what they’re getting into and to regulators who must continue to ensure that these new esports actors are compliant with regulations.”
