THERE’S a reason why gambling companies, especially the online specialists, spend hundreds of millions each year targeting football supporters.

Football’s, and by extension Celtic's, audience remains largely working class in character and people from these communities are at their most vulnerable to the predations of the online betting firms when they’re watching games.

This is not to suggest that affluent people are immune to the illness of addiction, only that people who have less money are more exposed in the hope of stumbling upon something that will improve their situation.

Once, not so long ago, the betting firms could only reach you by coaxing you physically into their High Street premises. Now, they can target you each minute of the day with a bewildering array of online stratagems designed for the sole purpose of making you spend and keep spending. The television adverts come with warnings that tell you “when the fun stops, stop”. The fun for these companies comes with the knowledge that when the fun stops the serious spending starts.

These firms know too that on matchdays men (and it’s still mainly men) are more likely to be drinking alcohol when watching a match, if they’re not actually there in person. I’ve been captured more than a few times amidst the rush you get just prior to kick-off when the adrenalin and the vodka kick in and you think you possess the wisdom of the ancients predicting how footballers go about their business. 

A few years ago I was tasked by the Observer newspaper to watch several live football matches back-to-back on the day that BT launched its coverage of English football. It should have been a delight. Switch on the telly at 8am, watch all the build-up and their fancy new graphics and then sit back to watch three games in the company of Messrs Tennents and Smirnoff before firing off 1,000 words. And then get paid for it. 

Before long though, I became mesmerised by the onslaught of online gambling products being pedalled before, during and after every commercial break. I eventually counted nine different betting companies offering an enticing array of discounted products to the millions watching at home. Drug pushers always make the first sale cheap, knowing that the new customer will be back for more. They wait for the day when the user becomes an addict. Because that’s the day they can charge whatever price they want. 

The online gambling products work in the same way: free spins; first bet fee; £10 worth of free bets. These firms are seeking a lifelong relationship, knowing that in the end they’ll still be there when all the other relationships fail. 

Football clubs knowingly participate in this daily exploitation and justify it with the massive cheques they receive from the largest gambling sharks. It permits them to pay higher wages for better players, they say, thus making their teams more competitive. And that’s all the fans want, right? 

In reality though, they are risking the mental and physical health of their most vulnerable and economically disadvantaged supporters by offering them as bait for the online predators. The tragedy here is that these supporters are so emotionally, culturally and spiritually invested in their clubs – for many reasons that go beyond the mere winning of football matches – that they are willing participants in the scam. If their club tells them that the money from a gambling ‘partner’ means they stand a better chance of defeating their bitterest rivals – or even just surviving – then nothing else matters.

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In a Channel Four documentary last year, hosted by the former Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson (a former BBC journalist) it was revealed that gambling logos could appear more than 700 times in a single football match. Davidson was scathing in her conclusions about the relationship between gambling and football. It was, she said like a “parasite that’s taking over the host”. 

The programme also shone a light on the practice of “cross-selling”. This is when supporters are enticed to sample other products – casino games and slots which are known to have higher addiction rates.These firms spend millions on cutting-edge technology and pay the same for mathematics gurus to produce the algorithms that identify juicy patterns of behaviour. They can thus separate the most vulnerable from the pack and target them with products tailored to exploit them in their weakest moments.  

A 2019 report by the academic research and media commentary site, The Conversation showed clear spikes in adverts around matches during the World Cup of 2018, as well as quick links to betting opportunities. They said that the pandemic had led to increased gambling activity among young people. 

“These trends are likely to have been repeated during Euro 2020 – but fuelled this time by new habits formed during the pandemic.

“The research, undertaken with participants of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, clearly shows how the first lockdown in England sparked a peak in online gambling among younger adults. And while the reduction in live sport and the closure of betting shops reduced overall gambling, online betting went up six-fold for regular gamblers. This included bingo, poker and casino games.

“We found that younger men who gambled regularly were much more likely to go online to gamble during the lockdown than they had been in the past. Respondents who only gambled occasionally were still more than twice as likely than before to gamble online.”

As a Celtic fan I’d beseech my club to sever all its connections with the online betting industry. Celtic’s current multi-million-pound shirt sponsors are Dafabet, a massive online gambling company based in the Philippines and described as the flagship brand and subsidiary of AsianBGE. 

Celtic seem to have given themselves over to the gambling industry. In 2019 they actually crossed several lines that took it from simply being a club with a gambling sponsor into something much darker. Celtic offered supporters the chance to win much-sought-after tickets to a potential title-winning game against Kilmarnock. Supporters were enticed to spend £20 with the online casino, Mr Green. 

The club did so in the certain knowledge that thousands would take the chance to see us take another step to a historic third consecutive treble. The prize of a pair of tickets to see this game would also attract many first-time gamblers. The addiction rates of online slot machines are truly disturbing, yet Celtic knowingly exposed their most vulnerable supporters to the dangers. 

Are Celtic so desperate for cash – at any cost – that it happily allows its supporters to be exploited in this way? Like all addictions, gambling feeds on deprivation and inequality. Celtic were founded to help Irish immigrants out of poverty. The great majority of them were forced to flee the Great Famine, which was exacerbated by the cruelty of the British state and claimed the lives of more than one million Irish men, women and children. 

Now it’s exposing them to another cruelty: the ruthless plundering of the global, multi-billion-pound betting industry.

Celtic, through their excellent charitable foundation, have helped numerous deserving causes and, around Christmas time, make many unsolicited cash gifts to individuals and their families who are encountering challenges. This is in the finest traditions of our founders and the values that underpinned them.

Yet every pound the club accepts from the vultures who manage the evil online betting industry contaminates the good that they do. This matters much more than any cups or titles.