Children ‘are being enticed to gamble’
Tens of thousands of children are being enticed into gambling through the social media feeds of betting firms, an investigation has found. About 41,000 UK followers of gamblingrelated accounts on Twitter are under 16, according to Bristol University and the Demos think tank. They found children made up 6 per cent of followers of traditional gambling accounts and 28 per cent responding to e-sports betting tweets in the UK.
BETTING firms are using social media to entice children into gambling, an investigation has found.
Around 41,000 UK followers of gambling-related accounts on Twitter are under the age of 16, according to a study by Bristol University and Demos, a social policy think tank.
They found children made up 6 per cent of followers of traditional gambling accounts, rising to 17 per cent of accounts focused on gambling on esports, multiplayer video games played competitively for spectators, typically by professional gamers.
Of those responding to e-sports betting tweets in the UK, 28 per cent were children. Yet, only 0.1 per cent of this content contained a warning about the minimum age for gambling, gambling responsibility or the application of terms and conditions.
The study found that 68 per cent of traditional sports and 74 per cent of esports tweets appeared to contravene regulations in some way by presenting gambling as an income source or by encouraging it at unsociable times.
Advertising of free bets was also prevalent on Twitter, with half of tweets from gambling accounts related to “free” or “matched” bets, which understate the risks of betting and are complex for young and vulnerable gamblers to understand.
Only 7 per cent of tweets sent from a gambling account included some kind of warning within the text, with only 4 per cent advising responsible use.
The report, funded by the charity Gambleaware, urged tech firms to make better use of age-verification tools and technology to screen out children from gambling ads, and for regulators to pursue those breaking the rules and consider tighter regulations.
The researchers found betting advertising is widely shared on Twitter. Over nine months in 2018, 888,000 tweets were sent from Twitter accounts known to be related to betting, reaching 700,000 in the UK.
Bookmakers and their affiliates sent an average of 14 tweets per day.
Josh Smith, of Demos, said: “High volumes of messages are produced to appeal particularly to children, with thousands of children in the UK following and responding.
“Advertising regulations are being regularly flouted by gambling advertisers online. We hope 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 [e-sports] actors are compliant with regulation.”
Professor Agnes Nairn, of Bristol University, said: “Children’s e-sports gambling is under the radar in two ways: it’s online where parents won’t see it and uses clever content marketing such as memes, pictures and funny stories, to appeal to and implicitly influence young people.”