Sometimes even the advertisement makes you think: idyllic scene at the DFB Cup game between FC Unity Wernigerode and SC Paderborn 07
The new Bundesliga season has started and ARD-»Sportschau« can still be presented by a sports betting provider. Meanwhile, on August 2nd, a nationwide “Alliance against Sports Betting Advertising” (BGSWW) attracted public attention for the first time. According to its self-description, the association is committed “to restricting sports betting advertising as far as possible through the necessary political decisions – as other European countries are already doing – and calls on the participating institutions in sports to assume their social responsibility and to strengthen research and prevention”.
The members of the alliance range from the Advisory Council for Affected Persons in Bavaria, the Federal Working Group for Fan Projects, the Federal Association for Self-Help Gambling Addiction, the German Head Office for Addiction Issues, Transparency International and the fan alliance »Unsere KURve« to the state offices against addiction risks in Bavaria, Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein. The focus is on fighting the rigorous media advertising of sports betting as an effective measure to prevent addiction. »The newcomers to the self-help groups from Flensburg to Garmisch-Partenkirchen have become significantly younger in the last two or three years and are almost exclusively addicted to sports betting. People often get much more into debt in a very short time than before,” Nicole Dreifeld from the Federal Association for Self-Help Gambling Addiction points out to dangerous tendencies, primarily among the younger public.
“The sports betting addiction has brought me to prison,” reports Tobias Blümel from Mönchengladbach, who claims to have been “addicted to sports betting” for 15 years. »Through my prevention work in schools and sports clubs, I notice again and again how much power sports betting has gained in football. It just has to be curbed,” he explains.
»Sports betting advertising appropriates fan culture and normalizes the existence of bets in the sports context without adequately pointing out the problems and without offering sufficient protection for minors. Those interested in football can hardly escape the advertising, which is why we have now exceeded the limit of what is tolerable,” explains Markus Sotirianos from “Unsere Turn” as one of the BGSWW spokespersons. “For the first time in this alliance, partners are now networked who had not been networked before,” he says jW. The individual actors could now share their experiences and expertise much better than before. “In this way we can build up more and more pressure on the political actors and put them under pressure.”
At least in Bremen, the warnings, admonitions and scientific findings regarding the dangers of gambling and sports betting have found a hearing in politicians. Interior Senator Ulrich Mäurer (SPD), who had already taken on the dispute over the costs of police operations in so-called risk games with the German Football League (DFL), now seems to want to take care of the sports betting industry as well. Bremen’s public order office recently ordered that all betting shops may only continue their business if the operators provide credible proof of the origin of the seed capital for their companies. None of the 32 betting shops affected was initially able to provide this evidence and then closed the premises rather than being prosecuted for illegal betting operations.
