Safer Gambling Chase
In the safer gambling chase, Britain’s gaming community of operators and media broadcasters has donated £3.94m (US$5.37m/€4.43m), and counting, to GambleAware’s “Betregret” scheme during the current 2020-21 financial year, it has been reported.
Amongst operators, Flutter Entertainment led the field with £683,847 donated to the charity in the first three fiscal quarters, ending December 31, 2020.
Entain plc, currently subject to a massive takeover bid by MGM Resorts, ran a close second, clocking £643,847; while Bet365, running on the inside, made a late dash and crossed third with a contribution of £580,898.
Placing to win, The Stars Group, AKA Sky Betting and Gaming, came in a creditable fourth, donating £565,000; followed by several lengths by William Hill with £410,000, who have a lot of ground to cover if there are to meet their commitment to donated a total of £1m by the financial year’s end.
Other runners included Gamesys (£312,509), Camelot (£246,063), BetVictor (£149,917), Kindred (£98,927), Betway (£93,750), Leo Vegas (£57,768), followed, piping Betsson (£57,033) by half a head, with the Rank Group (£45,000) placing, in this case, a lucky 13th.
GambleAware’s Safer Gambling campaign, scheduled to run across two years, is designed—as it says on the race programme—to raise public awareness of the risks associated with gambling.
The project has a projected budget of £7m (US$9.57m/€7.86m) a year, with GambleAware tapping the UK’s top 20 operators to make donations based on a percentage of their national marketing spend.
The GambleAware project has garnered additional funding with an agreement between the industry and the Gambling Commission, which has included £3m (US$4.1m/€3.37m) from William Hill in settlement of its “Mr Green” legal controversy and £5.8m (US$7.9m/€6.5m) from Betway in part-settlement for breaching social responsibility and money laundering regulations.
UK Broadcasters and social media platforms have in turn donated a further £1.08m (US$1.47m/€1.21m) in support of the “Betregret”.
Sky contributed £629,479, ITV £247,350, Facebook £180,329, Twitter £15,392 and YouTube £15,000.
