Betway defends football shirt sponsorship deals

Betway has defended the gambling industry’s ability to sponsor Premier league football shirts in the wake of Labour’s proposals to ban gambling firms sponsoring football shirts.

Since February 2015, Betway has been the official shirt sponsor of West Ham United, this season’s extension of the partnership, means The Hammers are one of nine Premier League clubs with a gambling company as its shirt sponsor.

Anthony Werkman, Marketing and Operations Director of Betway Group told SBC: “Broadcast to hundreds of countries, millions of homes and billions of people every season, the Premier League is the most-watched professional sport league in the world. For a global brand like Betway, it offers unrivalled exposure.

“Given the intrinsic relationship and audience overlap between betting and football, shirt sponsorship is a natural, obvious and valuable advertising placement for bookmakers.

“Rightly, any partner of a world-class level sport competition or organisation can expect to be closely vetted and scrutinised. Betway is licensed and regulated by the Gambling Commission and a proud member of numerous industry groups and bodies.”

Detailing how Betway safeguards against underage gambling, Werkman added: “Betway has invested heavily in technology to prevent underage gambling. Our market-leading compliance team accurately and immediately work to identify problem and suspicious gambling.

“Allied to this is a thorough responsible marketing policy that ensures people falling into these groups are not targeted in the first place. We comply with and fully support the strict regulation in place to ensure betting company logos cannot appear on youth team playing kit, or children’s-sized merchandise.”

Werkman also spoke of the measures that Betway have in place to safeguard and identify underage gambling, describing them as ‘comprehensive KYC checks to identify age and location’ adding that the group has ‘sophisticated algorithms that proactively monitor customer behaviour patterns so we can intervene if there are any causes for concern.’

Some key figures from the gambling industry will discuss social responsibility at next week’s Betting on Sports conference at the London’s Olympia on September 13-15. To find out more, click here.