Monthly Archives: February 2021

Gambling sponsorship in European football is rife. In fact, there are more betting companies on the front of team shirts in the top two leagues of English football than not. These companies are well-matched sponsors for football teams because they bring in lots of revenue for the clubs, which goes towards funding the professional game and trickles down into community initiatives. The relationship also helps the gambling sponsors by targeting a demographic that is known to enjoy casino games, and of course, sports betting.

But this flourishing relationship may be about to be broken up. There are some calls for this type of sponsorship to be banned from the beautiful game. So, is there a cause for concern?

Gambling Companies Neednt Worry

According to the marketing manager at PartyCasino, their mobile gambling site, which is one of the most popular in the UK, has seen record months and shows no sign of falling. It suggests that betting companies are not expected to lose too much sleep if they are kicked out of the picture in elite-level football.

Gambling from a mobile device has increased exponentially since the events of 2020 and bricks, and mortar casino had to shut their doors. These casinos have captured a new market that may not have started using online bookmakers and casinos otherwise. And this is why experts believe online casinos are set to dominate the market.

There is no question that football sponsorship deals are good business for casinos and sports bookmakers, but there are not the be-all and end-all of their operations.

Why Do Some Want Gambling Sponsorship Banned?

Gambling companies have to jump through a lot of hoops when advertising their products and services in the UK. The best online casinos and bookmakers recognise the importance of stringent regulations to keep people safe and protected and are thus more than willing to cooperate.

Yet, there are some calls from activist groups and government officials to have this form of sponsorship removed from English football. In July 2020, a government committee recommended the ban, following on from reports in Spain that could see the end of gambling companies appearing on La Liga team shorts.

The main concern is that football is enjoyed by vulnerable peoples and young people not yet of legal age to gamble. These groups are then exposed to gambling companies and potentially enticed to play. Rules are already in place by The UK Gambling Commission to prevent advertisements to young people. So, does sponsorship fall within this bracket?

When Would a Ban Come into Force?

The committee that advised on the ban in July 2020 believes if the ban was to be implemented, it would only do so until 2023. And the ban is not said to affect Premier League clubs until even later. It will give gambling companies plenty of time to look for other sponsorship opportunities, possibly in other mainstream sports.

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As football looks to drop gambling sponsors, is there a cause for worry? | LondonDailyPost.com - London Daily Post

Gambling is an activity that we all do from time to time. Maybe you once bought a scratch-off lottery ticket or wanted to take a cool trip to Vegas. Even outside of the lottery or a casino, many of us take risks in order to gain something bigger.

However, this can become an addiction that can ruin ones marriage and life in general. Lets talk about compulsive gambling, also known as a gambling addiction.

Gambling addiction is when you have a compulsion to gamble that is uncontrollable. Like other addictions, gambling can stimulate the part of your brain thats associated with rewards. If you win something, it feels good. Or, the rush you feel gambling, in general, can feel like a reward. However, your brain cant stop craving it, and this can lead to pure addiction.

A gambling addict is unable to stop, even if they are in the red. It is easy to see how this can lead to life problems, from losing too much money to having to resort to stealing to feed the addiction.

Anyone can be a gambling addict, but for most people, they may play the slots every now and again but otherwise remain financially stable. However, there are certain people who may be at risk, including:

If you are younger, youre more at risk, especially as a child or teen. Its one of the reasons why you have to be 21 to gamble in many places.

However, middle-aged people tend to have an addiction as well. This can be due to a mid-life crisis or just having more time compared to young adults.

A man tends to have a higher chance of being a problem gambler compared to a woman. However, women can become addicted faster, so it does depend.

Depression, substance abuse issues, and anxiety are just some disorders that are associated with gambling addiction. Also, the addiction can worsen those conditions and feed into them. You may gamble due to depression, then feel more depressed if you lose money.

If you have a family history or friend history of gambling issues, this can also increase your chances. Also, people who have certain personalities, such as someone who gets bored easily or someone who is naturally a risky person.

Of course, the line between someone who likes to gamble and an addict can be blurry. Thats why its important to spot some of the symptoms of gambling. These include:

If youre always thinking about gambling and the thoughts cant go away, then you may have an addiction.

A casual gambler tends to have a limit. If they lose so much, they stop doing it.

However, an addict has to win it all back. They keep playing to win back their losses. Sometimes, they may win it back, but then lose it all trying to win more. It can be a tough cycle, especially as someone loses more and more money.

If you try to cut back, it makes you feel uneasy. Just like drug addiction, you may be unable to cut back without rushing back to the casino.

If your spouse tells you to stop and you dont, youre willing to risk your marriage to gamble. If youre someone who passes job opportunities to gamble, this is yet another issue that you may experience. You may avoid other life obligations to gamble, causing you several different issues in the process.

You know you have a serious gambling addiction if its ruining your life. In extreme cases, a person may risk their health, relationship, finances, or even risk getting arrested to feed the gambling beast.

Just like any other addiction, gambling addiction tends to be treated through a combination of medication, therapy, and self-responsibility.

For example, there are mood stabilizers you can take to reduce your chances of giving in. Meanwhile, learning cognitive behavioral therapy can help you break the chain between thoughts about gambling and actions.

Just like most addictions, a compulsive gambler may be unable to do it casually and may need to avoid casinos or anything that could trigger a relapse.

Of course, the first step to any addiction is realizing you have a problem. If people who love you have pointed out your addiction, it is time to listen. Meanwhile, you may be able to seek help by getting diagnosed. An online diagnosis can tell you if you have an addiction, and then you can take the next steps. Click this link below for more information on addiction.

https://www.mind-diagnostics.org/blog/gambling-addiction

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Let's Talk About Gambling Addiction - The Good Men Project

A growing number of Japanese are illegally gambling online, lured by social media campaigns and assurances from overseas websites that they can avoid arrest for their illicit bets.

Japanese police dispute the sites claims, but they do acknowledge the difficulties in gathering sufficient evidence in such cases. Many of the gamblers, in fact, are unaware that their actions violate Japanese law.

Based on this situation, some experts fear that gambling addictions could increase in Japan.

The Asahi Shimbun and the Tokyo-based Japanese subsidiary of SimilarWeb, an Israeli digital analysis support company, conducted a study on how many people in Japan were using overseas online gambling sites.

The most popular casino site was Vera & John. Its monthly number of visits from Japan increased 119-fold from 648,000 in December 2018 to 77.51 million in January 2020, the study showed.

Although the figure declined to 19.88 million in August 2020, it rose again to 49.38 million in November.

The website states that it gained an operating license in Curacao, a Dutch island in the Caribbean Sea. It also encourages Japanese participation, stressing that it offers fair and just games everyone can enjoy safely and securely.

Worry that you may be arrested for gambling? Never worry about it! the Vera & John site says in Japanese.

Most online betting site operators are said to have obtained official licenses in nations where gambling is legal. A number of them also display messages in Japanese to attract Japanese users.

There are two major categories of gambling sites: online casinos and sports betting.

Among online sports betting services, bet365 received the largest number of views from Japanese, surging from 860,000 in December 2018 to a peak of 13.2 million in July 2020, according to the Asahi-SimilarWeb study.

Bet365s site says its license comes from Malta in southern Europe.

The increased popularity of online gambling coincides with the spreading use of cryptocurrencies. Advertisements on social media for online gambling have also become more prevalent.

Overseas customers can easily register on online betting sites; they only need to enter their names, addresses, bank account numbers and other information.

While credit cards or virtual currency can be used for payments, winnings are supposed to be sent via Japanese bank accounts and other means.

Most forms of gambling are prohibited in Japan. People who gamble on overseas-based sites while on Japanese soil are in breach of the criminal law, according to police.

They said some illegal gamblers have been nabbed.We will round up as many users as possible, a National Police Agency official said.

But it is difficult for investigators to gain the consent of server managers and other parties to collect evidence from bases in countries and regions where gambling is legal.

In response to an inquiry by The Asahi Shimbun, Vera & John affirmed that it operates in accordance with the license, so betting in cash with us will not pose any problems.

The operators of bet365 did not respond to inquiries.

EASY ADDICTION

A man in his 20s in the Kinki region started gambling on the internet a few years ago to make extra money. He came across Vera & John at a time when his monthly salary was 150,000 yen ($1,422).

I knew it was illegal, but I believed I would never be arrested, he said.

On one day, he spent 10,000 yen for one round of betting and wonabout 300,000 yen.

But now, his total losses have exceeded 2 million yen, so he is much more cautious about making bets.

Once I won, my financial sense became paralyzed, he said. Its terrifying that I can gamble so easily there.

A Chiba Prefecture resident in his 50s found his eldest son, who entered a college in the Kanto region six years ago, had become addicted to online gambling.

The father visited the sons home and found bills for student loans from three agents totaling nearly 1 million yen. The son reassured his father, saying, I can turn 20,000 yen into 100,000 yen or so.

Disturbed by the delusional comment, the father intervened and repaid the sons debt. But the following day, the student borrowed an additional 700,000 yen.The father realized the near-impossible task of getting gambling addicts to stop.

He was like a car with a broken brake, the man recalled.

He had his son take leave from college to receive treatment at a facility to overcome his addiction. The son has been discharged from the rehabilitation center but did not return to his familys home.

LOW AWARENESS OF ILLEGALITY

A Tokyo-based group that calls itself the international casino institute conducted a survey in December on 1,000 Japanese in their teens or older. It found that 2.3 percent of them participated in online betting at least once. That ratio would translate into about 2.88 million people nationwide.

The gambling rate was highest among men in their 40s, at 8.4 percent, and 4.8 percent of them said they have gambled within the past year.

Only 41 percent of the respondents said they knew online gambling was illegal in Japan, while 41 percent said it fell into a gray zone, and 18 percent believed it was legal.

Takashi Kiso, head of the group, said online casinos and sports betting services started spreading dramatically in the 2010s, largely because easier payments in bitcoin and other virtual currencies became common.

Dozens of online gambling operators are believed to run Japanese sites. The user numbers are reportedly rising because people lack awareness of the illegality and gambling sites are aggressively promoting their services through social media.

According to Kiso, betting over the internet is still not as common as other forms of gambling in Japan, and the country has no sufficient countermeasures against online gambling addiction

Blocking access to those sites or other strong means will be essential, Kiso said.

(This article was written by Tamiyuki Kihara and Kosuke Tauchi.

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More Japanese gambling online, many unaware that it's illegal : The Asahi Shimbun - Asahi Shimbun

The UK neobank has teamed up with open banking provider TrueLayer to enhance the reach of its popular gambling block feature, Crowdfund Insiderreports.

While Monzo customers can currently turn on a gambling block to prevent the usage of their card for payments to gambling companies, some gambling providers are shifting toward open banking-powered payments. TrueLayer will now use an API call to notify Monzo when a customer attempts to make an open banking payment to a gambling firm. Monzo can then prevent the completion of the payment if that customer has their gambling block activated.

Solid demand for spending limit capabilities has prompted incumbents and neobanks alike to add them to their personal finance management suites to drive customer acquisition and loyalty. The ability to set spending limits more broadly for a credit or debit card is popular: More than half (53%) of respondents to Insider Intelligence's UK Mobile Banking Competitive Edge 2020 survey called that capability "extremely" or "very" valuable.

And demand for gambling blocks more specifically is driving banks to offer them: HSBCaddeda self-restricting gambling block feature in November 2019, while Starlingenhancedits own tool with a 48-hour switch-off delay in March, for example. Monzo stated that its block, which has existed since 2018, has over 275,000 usersrepresenting 5.5% of Monzo's approximately 5 million totalclients.

The enhanced gambling block is one of several initiatives Monzo has pursued recently centered on its customers' financial health.In addition to broadening its own gambling block, Monzo this week alsocalledfor UK regulators to ensure that consumers have wider access to gambling blocks. And earlier this month, the neobank announced a partnership with Experian to offer customers access to Experian Boost, a service that leverages open banking to improve credit scores,perAltFi.

Experian Boost factors in a broader range of transactional data into credit scores than does traditional credit scoring, including money earned and spent, council tax payments, savings and investments, and subscription payments to services like Netflix, Spotify, and Amazon Prime.

These efforts that help clients stay on top of their financial health may not create competitive advantages for Monzogambling blocks are increasingly popular among UK banks and other neobanks can also integrate Experian's solutionbut they could increase existing customer loyalty as clients see Monzo taking action to help them improve their financial lives.

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Monzo's gambling block feature ups the ante with open banking - Business Insider

Some commentators reckon Facebook has called Australias bluff. They may be about to discover that Australia isnt bluffing.

The platforms own irresponsible and chaotic implementation of its Australian news ban appears to have rallied the country citizens and politicians from across the aisles and governments from around the world, to support the Australian governments resolve.

As a former chief executive of Facebook in Australia and New Zealand, Stephen Scheeler, wrote in the Nine newspapers, the company has taken an enormous gamble, betting that by taking an aggressive hard line with a middle power, such as Australia, a tough message will be sent to the rest of the world to back off on regulation.

But, as he says, there is an alternative scenario. When you pull a governments pants down in front of the world, you leave it little option but to dig in. When you vandalise 13 million citizens news feeds as a bargaining chip, you raise the stakes ... So witnessing a standoff between Australia and Facebook could be the catalyst for genuine global reform. It could be that future historians of the internet come to see this decision as the moment the world sat up and started to take serious action on making Big Tech accountable to society.

So far, that second scenario is playing out.

Its hard to think of a better way for a platform to anger a nation and destroy whats left of its own reputation than to block health and hospital sites in a pandemic, emergency service sites in a state that recently battled bushfires and the sites of innumerable welfare groups, charities and community organisations, all in a bid to avoid making payments under a new media bargaining code that aims to address the power imbalance between media companies and the big tech platforms.

Its hard to think of how to look more like an arrogant international monopoly not taking a country and its proposed laws seriously than to implement a ban with no warning and in such a ham-fisted way that a radio station could get its page back up by listing itself as a gift shop and users could still post news articles if they were posted as a link to a tweet. This is a company so sure of its capacity to bully that it was prepared to push the big destroy news in Australia button apparently without spending even a moment thinking through the consequences.

It didnt take long for comparisons to be made about how easy it had been for Facebook to shut down real, factual news and how difficult it had claimed the task of shutting down fake news and misinformation, or even shutting off the livestream of a massacre, or for questions to be asked about how a company that is supposed to be all about connecting the world could so blithely disconnect factual news from an entire nation, leaving the top-performing links to news-adjacent comedy sites and satire.

Facebooks response, that the breadth of its ban was due to the definition of news in the proposed code, makes no sense since the code is not yet law, and the company immediately began reversing some of the blocks as they were publicised by outraged users.

So far it has succeeded in strengthening the governments resolve. The prime minister says, pointedly, that threats are not a good way to deal with his government.

Google, the other media giant that faced being forced into negotiation and arbitration with news companies under the code, found a workaround.

In order to avoid setting the legal precedent of paying for news appearing in search, it has done deals of similar magnitude with Australian media companies large and small for stories to appear in its Showcase service. The government has achieved its aim of getting the platform to pay the news companies, and Google has avoided the precedent. The government retains the ability to activate the letter of the law and force payment for news appearing in search at any time in the future, as a means of ensuring the voluntary deals are not eroded over time, or denied to smaller and mid-sized publishers once the needs of the big end of town are met.

It is true that this arrangement, arrived at via the power of competition law, to even up the playing field between news companies and the powerful monopoly platforms that they cannot avoid doing business with, does not address the problem of concentration of media ownership in Australia.

But even if you hold deep concerns about that issue, as I do (it was one of the reasons we established Guardian Australia eight years ago) and even if you believe firmly that the government should act to increase media diversity, as I also do, it doesnt take too much thought to understand the danger of setting a precedent where a government uses competition law to decide which individual publishers it wants to favour and which it does not.

News Corps lobbying probably did help convince the Australian government to act on the competition regulators recommendations, and News Corp as the dominant news publisher in the country will reap substantial benefits from the code applied proportionately across the Australian publishing landscape. That is an uncomfortable reality that has caused some commentators to make the bizarre suggestion that other Australian publishers should render themselves less competitive by rejecting Googles offers, a strange idea that could only exacerbate the problem.

Writing on Medium and on the small Australian website Crikey, which was one of the very first Australian publishers to sign a Showcase deal with Google, US academic Jeff Jarvis argues Guardian Australia fell in league with the devil [News Corp] by seeking to negotiate exactly the same kind of agreement with Google as the company publishing him and most other media companies in Australia. He also claims Googles payments will not benefit journalism. He provides no evidence for this assertion, but if hes right it would be uncovered by the review to be conducted by Treasury at the end of the first year of the codes operation. Under Guardian Australias business model (we have no shareholders and operate solely to provide journalism) theres actually nothing else to spend it on.

As for Facebook, it now faces two choices. It could do deals in a similar way to Google, either voluntarily or through the formal negotiation and arbitration processes under the law, or it could stay out of Australia.

Facebook argues that journalism has a minimal upside for its business, that only about 4% of the content its users see is on their news feed. Under the logic of the code, that means it could expect to make much smaller payments than those being made by Google.

A continuing Facebook news ban does raise concerns, especially for small community news hubs, First Nations news services, or youth oriented or regional news services the kinds of sites highly dependent on Facebook. But it also highlights the dangers for them of being too reliant on a third party that is prepared to pull the plug overnight, without warning. Some of those organisations are already thinking about how they go back to basics and diversify the way they distribute their work. Should Facebook stay out, theres a strong argument for the government to help them.

Facebooks gamble is that Australia wont be able to live without it. Imagine the consequences if we prove that we can.

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Facebook is gambling Australia can't live without it. Imagine if we prove it wrong - The Guardian

Late in his life, W.C. Fields, bibulous gambler, was spotted reading, of all things, the Bible. An astonished friend asked why.

Without looking up, Fields muttered, Looking for loopholes.

That brings us to the self-destructive gambler and curious specimen, Craig Carton. Understand that compulsive gamblers have severe self-delusion in common. After weekly settling their debts with bookies, they sit at a red light in their overly financed cars, relieved and self-satisfied, telling themselves, Now Im even.

Cartons Saturday morning show on life-destroying gambling, heard over gambling revenue-reliant and invested WFAN, is surprisingly good and highly worthwhile, though Carton, the rest of the week, endeavors to prove he isnt worth any intelligent listeners short while.

For starters, on Saturdays hes a good listener. This past Saturday he allowed a recovering addict, Drew, to tell his story with Carton interrupting only to ask good questions.

On Saturdays he works clean, no sense that hes eager to reestablish his pre-prison popularity among creeps by being the stations crude, name-calling, scatological, defamatory Master Creep.

Despite (or because) working clean on Saturdays he has been entertaining, an interesting raconteur with a serious message he doesnt wield as a cudgel.

Drew, a Gamblers Anonymous member who juggled credit card debt the worst kind short of blackmail until he could no longer answer his wife with anything stronger than conspicuous lies as to what happened to their lives.

To that Carton added a Ralph and Alice Kramden farce: the time he thought hed verbally settled a debt with an A.C. casino collections agent he had the cash and, they agreed, he would come down to make good in two days. They agreed. He even challenged his wife to listen in on a second confirmation call so she could share that truth.

But then the agent told them that, no, Carton still officially had unpaid markers. Busted. And she was done believing him that it was someone elses error or fault. Its said that unlike alcoholism, you cant smell compulsive gambling. But wives can.

Carton was just another pampered high roller who lost his casinos love and VIP status to become a no-more-comps pariah because he defaulted on his credit.

Joined by Dan Trolaro of the N.J. Council on Compulsive Gambling, Cartons Saturday shows have two consistent missions:

To let people know, especially at a time when sucker sports gambling and no longer the love of sports is being shoved down their senses, that no one falls alone. Hardly.

And the only gambling system that has proven effective is to seek and sustain help. For all the bad-odds parlays WFAN pitches, Saturdays Carton show is the only one that doesnt promise to make it rain anything better than the plagues, Misery and Regret.

Saturday mornings at 9:30, Carton throws a changeup. Conditioned to success by going low, he travels a high road. His enabling, helicopter service to Atlantic City has been canceled. His federal serial number and those mug shots arent worth a spin at a penny slot machine.

Recidivism among problem gamblers is high. Arnie Wexler, a living saint for his 45 years of successfully counseling rock-bottomed gamblers, tells us that many who give heartfelt personal testimony at G.A. meetings are still plunging.

Thus time should tell if Cartons has gone straight or whether his Saturday show is an exercise in leafing for loopholes. He doesnt like me and I dont like him. But Im rooting for him.

Without the TV stars of golf Rory, Tiger, Phil to make event coverage into Access Hollywood, those who used to tune to watch golf among those in the lead or closest to it, were left to cool their Footjoys.

Thats why Sundays final round of the Pebble Beach Pro-Am, sans Ams, on CBS was good on the golf senses. No names to endlessly gush over, no transparent messing around with the leader board to place the bigger names ahead of lesser names despite identical scores.

In fact, Sunday CBS was forced to cover nine players down the stretch. Aside from Jordan Spieth, CBS was stuck with the likes of winner Daniel Berger, Nate Lashley and Maverick McNealy.

The upside: genuine coverage.

I often wonder if ESPNs top executives ever take even five minutes to reflect on how bona fide sports fans feel about what the network has so purposefully become.

Put it this way: Within 24 hours of the reported latest arrest of career person of interest Adam Pacman Jones, this time accused of having kicked a bouncer unconscious (which he denies), more than a dozen emails arrived suggesting the Jones would fit perfectly with those ESPN regularly rewards with on-air employment.

Pacmans traveling team in Vegas for the 2007 NBA All-Star Game left two strip club bouncers shot, one paralyzed, according to the police. Despite an $11 million civil court judgment against him, Jones has insisted on his innocence.

This weeks arrest is different from Jones previous collars in that he no longer has pandering Roger Goodell to quietly and lightly punish him before allowing him to return to NFL teams for whom he again can cost dearly for remorselessly brutal, illegal play. Those teams deserved what he provided.

But Id suggest that a real-deal NFL steward years ago would have gone on record stating that he plans to do all he can to keep Jones out of the league so Jones could no longer feed the leagues disrepute.

In an exchange with reader Steve DeCillis about the 3-point shot having turned NBA games into heave n hope sideshows, we reached this junction: Would Wilt Chamberlain today even be relevant or just another stand-around guy? DeCillis: Would Wilt shoot 3s under-handed?

The pride of UConn stomps on: As seen but not heard never! on SNY, Wednesday, Geno The Impaler Auriemmas women needlessly humiliated St. Johns, 77-32. Two UConn starters played 34 or more minutes. UConn subs? One played four minutes, another for two.

Nothing like raucous laughter over the antics of drunks who arent funny. I agree with the daughter of the designer of the NFLs Super Bowl champs Vince Lombardi Trophy: The yacht-tossing of the trophy as entrusted to an apparently inebriated Tom Brady was disrespectful and childish.

College basketball continues to destroy itself from the inside out. Sunday on ESPN2, the last 12 seconds of overtime in Loyola-Chicago at Drake included three timeouts plus five other clock stops. Twelve seconds, eight stops!

Unaccomplished 6-foot-9 Duke freshman Jalen Johnson is bolting for the NBA after less that one season. When will all the hollow, habitual praise for Mike Krzyzewski as extra special be replaced by reality? Duke is the latest Kentucky.

Due to revisionist social justice pressures, Roger Goodells alma mater, Washington & Jefferson, this week will be renamed &.

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Craig Carton's other WFAN show is surprisingly good - New York Post