May 31 – The English Football League’s title sponsor Sky Bet is spending £1 million on delivering a responsible gambling series of education workshops to all 72 of its clubs next season.
Delivered by EPIC Risk Management, the programme is focussed on gambling-related harm’ the will begin at Birmingham City, Norwich City, Charlton Athletic, Brentford, Accrington Stanley, Carlisle United, Lincoln City, Newport County, Oldham Athletic and Portsmouth during the off-season.
Notably there seems to be no focus on betting related match-fixing that has become an epidemic in football in Europe.
Instead the programme is focussed the damage betting can do to individual players, staff and their families. EFL Chief Executive Shaun Harvey said: “Betting in football should only serve to enhance the match day experience and I hope that by providing our campaign with visibility at every single game that supporters will be encouraged to stay in control and gamble safely.”
Last weekend all players in the Championship, League One and League Two Play-Off Finals at Wembley Stadium wore sleeve badges bearing the slogan ‘When the fun stops. Stop’. The badges will then be adopted across all League games from the start of the 2018/19 season onwards.
Sky Bet has recently announced a five-year extension to its partnership that sees the sports gambling company continue as headline sponsor of the Sky Bet EFL until 2023/24.
Sky Betting & Gaming CEO Richard Flint said: “When we announced the extension of our EFL sponsorship we were keen to put safer gambling at the heart of our renewed partnership.
“By funding such a vital service for every club we want to play our part in reducing gambling related harm amongst their players and wider staff. I firmly believe that responsible operators can add value to sport through partnerships like this.”
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