Sports betting sites take advantage of the Euro to attract new players.
Competition between operators leads to saturation of advertising space on television or in transport.
These advertisements aim in all conscience a young public, fragile, and quick to go into debt in the hope of a big gain.
If you missed it, bravo champion. You turned on the TV battery at kick-off, zapped during the ad, suspended your subscription to your favorite YouTuber, privileged the bike to the metro and not even read L
'Equipe
, Tuesday morning, with its banner in One all in discretion. So you haven't seen a single ad for a sports betting site, and you're a miracle worker.
Because in recent weeks, Betclic, Winamax and other Unibet have invaded the advertising space, taking advantage of the craze for Euro football.
A perfect time to recruit new players, like every big competition.
The record for bets placed on a match in France is also held by the final of the 2018 World Cup France-Croatia: 67 million euros.
With 24 teams and the arrival of small nations, the surprises could be more numerous during this Euro, and with them the opportunities to break the bank by betting well.
"We should perhaps regulate the advertising volume"
It is in any case the speech of the operators to seduce a new category of players, appeared during the pandemic: supporters who play with the heart, causing an increase in the average stake of 25%, according to a specialized analyst. All means are good to attract them first to its platform. In addition to standard ads, which are in strong rotation at match time, several star journalists are now promoting sports betting, helping to trivialize the idea that betting is an integral part of sport. Some YouTubers, followed by a strong and committed community which often has an impression of proximity to the videographer, have also been affiliated for several months with operators who provide them with special codes.
Since the opening of the market to competition on May 12, 2010, there are more and more sports betting sites. Today there are about fifteen of them, legal, in France. All of them try to stand out, leading to this saturation of advertising space during major sporting events. The National Games Authority (ANJ) can only regulate these campaigns since November 2020. However, according to its president Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, prohibiting advertising for these sites with a new Evin law would lead to the development of an “illegal offer” . But "it may be necessary to regulate the advertising volume" to avoid the overflow, she suggests to AFP. “There are countries where you cannot broadcast sports betting advertisements before a certain time, which prevents minors from seeing them. "
Tags, junk food and other codes for young people in cities
It would do good to avoid nausea even before kick-off, after five similar spots, including one placed between the hymns and the referee's whistle.
Because what questions, beyond visual saturation, is the uniformity of the message sent.
Isabelle Falque-Perrotin may well want to "leave room for daring, in the second degree", the ANJ had to sanction Winamax for its "King of the Jungle" campaign, on the grounds that it "suggests that playing contributes to the social success ".
Despite our requests, the management of Winamax did not wish to answer our questions.
The operator's new ad, “Tout pour la daronne”, is hardly more subtle.
In these advertisements, the codes are identical: urban music, tagged and poorly lit corridors, neon atmosphere, sofa smashed by spending hours there, junk food like pizza or kebab, and a friend in the back of the gambler, young from of minorities, which suddenly gains access to the wealth and respect of an entire neighborhood.
Sports betting is just a way to go on vacation to Palavas;
it allows outright to "put the daronne in the shelter".
A fragile target
Targeting young people from neighborhoods, which are often economically fragile, poses a real problem. According to the Games Observatory (ODJ), 70% of punters are under 34 in France, and two-thirds of the stakes are bet by players "belonging to modest social backgrounds, having a lower level of education and income. to those of other players ”. "Sports betting addicts have a lower average income than other game addicts," confirms Armelle Achour, president of SOS Joueurs. However, “these advertisements give these young people the illusion that they can get out of an environment where they accumulate obstacles. But mechanically, on the number of new players attracted during the Euro, it will create addicts in this population. "
Sasha Beckermann, social media and sports journalist at Le Figaro, participated Monday evening in a Twitter Space, a temporary voice discussion space launched recently by the social network, on the theme #NoBetNoDette: “We play with social misery. We make young people dare to win money easily, by betting, by completely forgetting that sport is a matter of chance. Little represented on television, these young people finally recognize themselves in these advertisements. A way of saying "This is your only solution to get out of your neighborhood, bet, you will not get there otherwise" according to one of the participants of Twitter Space.
No desire to castigate the bettors.
Just to make people and especially young people aware of this increasingly offensive marketing.
The best way to achieve change is with general awareness.
So share it en masse in your TL #NoBetNoDette
- Quentin 🇫🇷🇬🇧 (@Quentinschlz) June 14, 2021
This targeted advertisement "bothers me for two reasons", admits Mickaël, YouTuber and partner of BetClic with his TalkMyFootball channel. “Promising wealth which in reality only happens very rarely is problematic, and promising it to an audience that may be precarious is even more so. I sincerely hope that brands will evolve in their communication, especially TV spots in which it is very visible. "The videographer, who publishes a video every day during this Euro, has decided to warn his community before opening the sequence dedicated to forecasts:" be careful, bet small sums, set a budget, do not hope s 'enrich with online betting' and not play if you are a minor.
Prevention is now almost non-existent on the subject, and the fact that YouTubers, occasional players but also daily in contact with their fans who play with them, take it over clearly shows the shortcomings of the current legislation.
On the advertisements, the watermark “Family, social life, financial health.
Are you ready to stake it all?
Is almost invisible in the image abundance and as useful as the “eat five fruits and vegetables a day” in that of a famous fast food brand.
The ANJ also plans to launch a prevention campaign by working with a YouTuber.
Not sure that this is enough, however, given the firepower of the operators and the number of communities they already reach.
Live the match by betting
Above all, the discourse of temperance hardly attracts compared to the last code propagated by the advertisements: the idea that the match is “much more intense” by betting (therefore bland without?), Taking hostage the emotional stake of the sporting encounter to replace it with an emotional financial stake. "It is one of the driving forces behind the bet," explains Armelle Achour. It sets in motion emotional and neuronal charges that we illustrate very well with MRI. The brain of a former player will react to a PMU pen. "
Mickaël from TalkMyFootball nevertheless wishes to qualify the criticism of the “no bet, no game” idea: “I find this approach much more honest than saying that we can get rich by playing.
“Not all the players we interviewed say they are in favor of a ban on sports betting, or even their advertising.
Simply to better supervision so that the bet remains recreational.
"A bet that makes it possible to vibrate, that can also be done without money and between friends, we have seen the applications of forecasts explode", recalls Mickaël.
Moreover, given the scores of our journalists on that of 20 Minutes, we would do well to stay away from online betting sites ...
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