Turning the spotlight on Leicester City’s relationship with the gambling industry
As Leicester City begin a new season in a new division with a new manager and a new style of play, there are wider question marks over what we want our football club to be.
On Filbert Way this season, there will be a shift to optimism and positivity. After the misery of the previous campaign, it's a new start.
On the pitch, we will, presumably, win more games than last season, and we will do that playing an exciting new style of football. Off the pitch, there will be big changes to the financial outlook and a need to cut our cloth accordingly.
But underneath all of that, there's something much bigger to consider about Leicester's relegation - and there's nothing optimistic or positive about it.
We're not talking here about the loss of talented players, the deterioration in the quality of the opposition we'll be facing or even the severely dented pride.
It's summed up by the name of the league in which we'll be competing this season, which we'll be using here once and once only on this website: The Sky Bet Championship.
For Leicester City fans, gambling adverts are about to get even more unavoidable.
An unhealthy relationship
After weeks of covering relatively trivial topics like how Enzo Maresca's team will set up to play and whether we will ever sign a right winger, it felt increasingly important to address the elephant in the room.
Gambling isn't trivial. It's a multi-billion pound industry that costs people their lives every day.
We are told by pro-gambling lobbyists that we must protect the right to have the occasional flutter. But I've grown to abhor the way the gambling industry has wrapped its tentacles around football so tightly that it's hard to see the same sport I fell in love with as a 5-year-old.
Children these days are indoctrinated in football's unhealthy relationship with gambling. 42% of shirt sponsors in last season's Premier League promoted betting or gaming of some description. So much of this topic reeks of hypocrisy, perhaps most prominently when gambling addict Ivan Toney was hit with a lengthy ban for gambling on the sport he plays while forced to promote gambling on the front of the shirt he wore.
My own interest in football's relationship with gambling took a sharp upward turn in May 2019, when I interviewed Charles Ritchie, Callum Butcher and James Grimes for No Place Like Home magazine.
Charles's son Jack took his own life due to gambling addiction. Callum's friend and team-mate Lewis Keogh took his own life due to gambling addiction. James hit rock bottom due to gambling addiction but hasn't had a bet for several years. Charles and James now work together for the charity Gambling With Lives, campaigning for positive change.
Speaking to families bereaved by gambling-related suicide hardened my view that football as a sport had lost itself to the gambling industry. It also made me realise just how far my own club had dived into these murky waters.
“I watched as he shrank into his seat”
Many of you will be familiar with Annie Ashton, whose husband Luke took his own life after developing a gambling disorder. The coroner's report arising from the inquest into Luke's death is clear about the role gambling companies played and its findings, the first of their kind, represent a milestone for families who know the role gambling has played in the loss of their loved ones.
There is often talk of “the fan experience” at Leicester. So here’s one to consider.
In April 2022, in an article for The Guardian, Annie said:
“After my husband, Luke, took his life, I promised to take our son to watch every Leicester City FC home game. It had been a father and son tradition, and I wanted to carry it on.
“But every time we went, we couldn’t escape the gambling adverts around the stadium. The word “bet” was everywhere, flashing at us like a command. It was a reminder for my son of his dad’s gambling addiction, and I watched as he shrank into his seat.
“We have not been back.”
Two days before the start of the new season, I spoke to Annie to see if that remained the case.
“That is still the last experience we’ve had of going to watch Leicester,” says Annie. “I feel really sorry for my son because he is a massive football fan, but I've personally not been able to take him.
“It wasn't just the experience at the game. After my article, the club invited me in to speak to them. They were quite frank - they like taking the money in from the gambling companies because advertising is financially rewarding for them and they weren't willing to budge and turn it down. It's an easy route for clubs to take but I think it's sad.
“I asked if the club would ever consider not having gambling partners and it was a flat no. The club suggested some education around gambling which is ridiculous to me because we know those messages don't work if you have a gambling addiction.
“Anyone can become addicted to gambling as it is the gambling products themselves that are addictive. Surely it makes more sense not to invite people to gamble at all?”
Luke was an avid Leicester fan, and, despite being a Mancunian herself, Annie went to a lot of games with him.
“He was the one that would get the crowd singing,” says Annie. “When he came home he'd always lost his voice. He loved the atmosphere and was absolutely obsessed with Leicester. He used to wind me up singing Leicester songs all the time. The whole family are Leicester fans and everyone's football mad. My son still watches games with his cousins and they're always talking football.”
The Luton way
Annie now works with Gambling With Lives to campaign against gambling advertising in football and recently successfully petitioned the Government to publish its white paper on the Gambling Act.
The tireless work of people and charities like this has prompted some positive change. Sadly, while there have been small steps in the right direction, there have been strides in completely the wrong direction too - and Leicester City are right at the heart of those, both wittingly and unwittingly.
This summer, the EFL signed a 5-year extension to an existing contract with its main sponsor.
The branding is ubiquitous and unavoidable, from little things like the league's Twitter handle including the sponsor to the huge banners at either end of Wembley for each of the play-off finals. It's heartbreaking that the problems Annie and her son faced when merely trying to watch their team - our team - play are only going to get worse this season.
We often hear that the financial rewards offered by gambling sponsorship are too large for football clubs to ignore. But Luton Town's approach doesn't seem to have done them much harm as they sail into the Premier League at the same time we plummet in the other direction.
So what of the things the club can control? What of the club I'd like them to be, and that some other people would like them to be? Is there an appetite for the club to address off-field concerns like these, when other clubs are willing to listen and change? The answers given to Annie Ashton suggest not.
“Nobody seems to care”
In fact, there were so many things wrong with Leicester City last season I managed in April to compile a list of 100, but the eagle-eyed among you will spot, at number 87 - nestled between two other gambling-related concerns - the following: “The dodgy new gambling partner adverts for the company that employs models posing as executives”.
Last season, Leicester City had more gambling partners than any other club in the Premier League.
Despite their advertising around the perimeter of the pitch on Filbert Way, I couldn't remember off the top of my head which seemingly random numbers make up the shadiest of our gambling partners.
You can see these adverts in the background of what may have been memorable, iconic photos of goals in our last two home wins of the season - Timothy Castagne's winner against Wolves and Harvey Barnes's opener against West Ham - if we hadn't gone and spoiled it all by doing something stupid like getting relegated.
It's 6686. By way of an introduction, here's an alarming Josimar Football article on the subject.
For anyone who hasn't seen this yet, it's a lengthy read but worth it. If you're pushed for time, this is the closing paragraph which sums up why this story is important:
“Gambling companies used to sponsor football clubs. Football clubs now sponsor the gambling industry.
“The sport has been hijacked by poorly regulated or unregulated operators who use worldwide television and internet coverage to target markets where gambling is illegal.
“It would appear that the licensing process that allows this to happen has been utilised by criminals, and football clubs and leagues are happy to take their money. The tragedy is that nobody seems to care.”
There are, of course, people who do care, and will continue to try to make a difference.
“A majority of people are sick of gambling advertising,” says Annie Ashton. “I've had so many messages from people who just don't want to see it. It's triggering for people affected by gambling, who are bereaved from gambling harm, from people in recovery. The football industry isn't reading the room.”
Wouldn't it be great if our football club was one of the few that did?
