Professional Athletes Suffer from Addiction to Gambling, Charity Says
A charitable organisation, Sporting Chance, has highlighted the problem of gambling abuse among elite athletes who compete and are unemployed. Gambling and sports have entered a crucial stage of convergence according to Sporting Chance chief executive Colin Brand.
Sporting Opportunities Recommend A Study Of The Relationship Between Gambling And Sports
Consumers are typically the one that authorities care about when it comes to gambling abuse. And still, professional athletes could be just as vulnerable to addiction, reveals a recent letter from sporting chance, a UK charity.
Half of all patients at the clinic seek treatment for issues related to excessive gambling or associated injury, according to the group, and of these, 60% are professional athletes.
To Sporting Chance creator Tony Adams, a former England national soccer team captain and Arsenal FC player, that's not shocking at all. The facility is designed to help the current and former athletes overcome drug disorders.
Adams believes a turning point has been reached in the relationship between gambling and sport, and that gambling sponsorships in athletics will rise as the primary sales and funding mechanism. He is surrounded by like-minded people who want to counter the possible damage that can come from gambling and affect the health of athletes.
Colin Brand, Chief Executive of Sporting Chance, holds Adams' view and maintains that regulation is needed to improve how sports and gambling converge to avoid a future where gambling firms will have too much control over sporting competitions. Brand has laid his case out in an open letter against the amalgamation between sports and gambling.
Meanwhile, the center has introduced the GATE initiative, which stands for Gambling, Awareness, treatment, and Education, in an attempt to engage a sports association to counter the rise in gambling that permeates competitive athletic contests.
Tackling A Serious Health Issue
Brand states in his letter that gambling has developed into a major public health problem. With the industry now maturing in the UK for over a decade, the nation is now one of Europe's most open gaming industries and one of the world's.
An reported 50% of all Premier League teams are funded by betting or gambling and carry a gambling logo on their shirt. Teams received a whopping £349.1 million from shirt endorsement deals in 2019, putting those deals as one of the largest revenue streams.
According to a study by Deloitte on the most profitable and richest soccer clubs, spanning the period from 2019-2020, about 50% of their overall revenue generated is related to commercial agreements as opposed to the 'match day figures showing that an average 35% of the revenue is from broadcast deals and only about 19% is from advertisements.
Brand expressed concern that gambling already affects the mental health of those participating in professional sports, particularly athletes. Brand and Adams are forcing the industry to change its business model away from reliance on casinos to new revenue streams.
