Even handball is not immune to the socially harmful game of chance (final of the European Handball Championship in Vienna, January 31, 2010)
Ulrich Mäurer is used to making himself unpopular when it comes to sport. The Bremen Senator for the Interior (SPD) already experienced this when he called for the German Football League (DFL) to bear the additional costs for police operations in so-called risk games. At first Mäurer was left alone with his advance. Berlin, Hamburg, Rhineland-Palatinate and Thuringia have now followed suit.
In the course of this year, an »open working group« of the federal states is to be set up on the subject. Bremen’s initiative for a sports betting ban, which was rejected by the Conference of Interior Ministers (IMK) a good month ago, would also be desirable. In the official German of the host state of Baden-Württemberg, it was succinctly stated that the application “Ban on advertising for games of chance with a high addiction risk (sports betting, virtual slot machine games, online poker, online casino games) in the State Treaty on Gambling 2021” had been discussed. In the minutes with more than 80 agenda items and in the resolutions of the most recent IMK, the passage on the advertising ban is not even mentioned.
The attitude of his ministerial colleagues is “strange,” says Mäurer, referring to the “horrific sums invested in advertising for socially harmful gambling.” In the sports betting sector alone, around 20 million euros were spent on advertising last August, and a month later it was 29 million euros. »With now 35 legal providers nationwide, people are bombarded with advertising spots for games of chance on television, the Internet or in the stadiums. You can no longer avoid it. Almost 200,000 citizens are already considered addicted to gambling and another 325,000 people are at risk. The massive advertising will entice new and young target groups to play. «Against this background, the Bremen Senator for the Interior is combative. “After the IMK is before the IMK” is his credo. »This extremely worrying development runs counter to the goals of the State Treaty on Gambling. Therefore, I am convinced that the contract must be improved. “
However, the responsible interior minister colleagues between Kiel and Stuttgart do not seem to be interested in an effective containment of gambling in this way – as yet. Probably because a ban on advertising means a huge stab in an even bigger wasp’s nest. The political act desired by Bremen as a thorough prevention against rampant betting and gambling addiction would above all be a huge blow to the office of paid football as by far the most popular betting sport. Which is why leagues, clubs and prominent (ex) footballers also benefit exorbitantly from the flow of money for advertising spots and billboards. Andreas Blaue, member of the board of the German Association for Telecommunications and Media e. V., speaks of a “rapid development” in gambling advertising. From 2019 to 2020, the annual budget in this area increased by almost a third to now 571 million euros. The industry is now investing around three quarters of the amount in advertising that the automotive industry, for example, spends on it. In a comparison of the advertising budgets of the various branches of the economy, gambling is now in fifth place.
The Federal Center for Health Education (BZgA) in Cologne, which classifies the risk of addiction development in sports betting as “particularly high”, is also concerned about this development. Our own evaluations of the behavior of gamblers from 2019 have shown that around 229,000 players nationwide can be described as “problematic” and another 200,000 as “probably pathological”. “Adequate protection for players is therefore particularly important from an addiction prevention point of view,” says BZgA spokeswoman Marita Völker-Albert.
