Premier league bans gambling sponsors • Hacker News Board

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#81

Post by Phemist » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:21 PM UTC

dofm wrote: post #78

Phemist wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not surprising. Brits loooove lotteries. On every scale. My year abroad in the UK, in every social event I attended organized by a student society there would inevitably be left-over budget, which would be taken care of by.. a raffle. Some of these raffles could take 30 min (on an event that lasted ~3 hours). And people would be incredibly excited about it.. Really boggles my mind

I would be wary of generalising from British student society culture to wider British culture. But we would (IMO correctly) observe that while raffles and lotteries are both technically a form of gambling, a raffle is not really a lottery in the conventional sense; it tends to form a more specific social function because there's usually an array of cheap, fun, often slightly absurd prizes from local donors, the prize…

Thank you for the additional background! For me as a foreigner coming into the raffle culture, I have no such community associations with the raffles and consider the "naffness" rather more obnoxious. Once I found out that it basically was a staple at these social events, I would act British and leave early ;). That it is related to Church Fete makes the conversative party lottery link all the less surprising!

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#82

Post by brewdad » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:23 PM UTC

ElProlactin wrote: post #45

bluGill wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 18th amendment disagrees. While there is a large "your own fault" for things like this, there is also a large "you shouldn't be allowed to do some stupid things".

Citing the 18th Amendment, which not only failed to stop the sale of alcoholic beverages but led to the creation of a massive black market, as a rebuttal to the fact that America is a highly individualistic culture in which people are largely considered responsible for their inability to regulate their own behavior, is very strange.

The US is a highly individualist society in which groups of individuals love to tell those outside their group what they can and cannot do.

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#83

Post by dofm » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:26 PM UTC

rorylawless wrote: post #73

dijit wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm british. The way that gambling companies target the poorest of society feels disgustingly predatory. You can often tell the average income of an area based on how many betfreds and paddy powers there are on the high street.

Before leaving Britain, I lived in an area that had a ~50% poverty rate. The number of betting shops, small and large brands, just on the local high street alone was ridiculous. It reduced somewhat as gambling has moved online, however there is clearly still money to be made in bricks and mortar gambling.

New Labour did that with gambling deregulation.

Betting shops have begun to disappear not just because of moving online, but because regulations have finally limited the pernicious power of the fixed-odds betting terminal (FOBT). They were so disgustingly, vampirically profitable they were reason alone to open betting shops in small premises; two members of staff and four FOBTs and any small shop rakes it in. Now they finally do not make enough profit for that to be worth it.

Oddly, betting shops aren't in any planning categories and AFAIK never have been, so whenever you see one, it was specifically and individually approved. Which should tell you a thing or two about the uncomfortable overlap between small-scale commercial landlords and councillors.

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#84

Post by dofm » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:36 PM UTC

Phemist wrote: post #81

dofm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be wary of generalising from British student society culture to wider British culture. But we would (IMO correctly) observe that while raffles and lotteries are both technically a form of gambling, a raffle is not really a lottery in the conventional sense; it tends to form a more specific social function because there's usually an array of cheap, fun, often slightly absurd prizes from local donors, the prize…

Thank you for the additional background! For me as a foreigner coming into the raffle culture, I have no such community associations with the raffles and consider the "naffness" rather more obnoxious. Once I found out that it basically was a staple at these social events, I would act British and leave early ;). That it is related to Church Fete makes the conversative party lottery link all the less surprising!

We do have a rather unusual relationship with naffness in this country! It's very difficult to explain :-)

New Zealand also has the same sort of church/community raffle culture, I gather; very much an export.

The Conservatives did start the National Lottery in the 90s and it definitely tried to hang off the "good causes" thing, but as I detailed in another overlong comment, much of the UK's more disturbing gambling trends were caused by subsequent deregulations enacted by the subsequent (New) Labour government.

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#85

Post by Phemist » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 5:53 PM UTC

dofm wrote: post #84

Phemist wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the additional background! For me as a foreigner coming into the raffle culture, I have no such community associations with the raffles and consider the "naffness" rather more obnoxious. Once I found out that it basically was a staple at these social events, I would act British and leave early ;). That it is related to Church Fete makes the conversative party lottery link all the less surprising!

We do have a rather unusual relationship with naffness in this country! It's very difficult to explain :-) New Zealand also has the same sort of church/community raffle culture, I gather; very much an export. The Conservatives did start the National Lottery in the 90s and it definitely tried to hang off the "good causes" thing, but as I detailed in another overlong comment, much of the UK's more disturbing gambling t…

It also explains the UK representatives for Eurovision in the last.. say 25 years (except Sam Rider in 2022). I've wondered if e.g. this year's very very naff send-in (Eins, Zwei, Drei (although, that was not an R)) was a deliberate attempt at an FU to the eurovision, or rather a genuine attempt that would speak to the populace. I'm leaning towards the latter now.

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#86

Post by nunez » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:01 PM UTC

arpinum wrote: post #52

raffa667 wrote: post #15

Same happened in Italy, so all betting sites turned into "news" site so you would have teams being spored by "betting_company_name news". Useless. There's a proposal to be back to previous type of sponsorship.

Same with the drinks companies, they switched to explicitly advertising their zero alcohol beers.

That is in response to an actual trend. Alcohol has fallen out of favor these last few years.

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#87

Post by ElProlactin » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:03 PM UTC

bluGill wrote: post #76

ElProlactin wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then you're arguing that "the US isn't that individualistic, as compared to a society that doesn't exist."

The original argument was the USA is that society that we have now agreed doesn't exist.

Nothing in your comments refutes what I wrote:

> American culture is deeply individualistic. From a cultural perspective, a person who fails in their recovery from addiction is seen, ultimately, as being responsible for their failure. They'd typically be criticized for being weak and undisciplined, even if the fake kindness of American culture prevents most people from saying that out loud.

If you want a stunning, quantitative example, here you go:

https://americanhealth.jhu.edu/news/guiding-principles-addre...

> Many Americans view poor individual choices/lack of discipline as the cause of opioid addiction:

> 78% of Americans believe people who are addicted to prescription opioids are, themselves, to blame for the problem.

> 72% believe that people addicted to prescription opioids lack self-discipline.

This is despite the fact that the opioid epidemic was driven by pharma companies employing aggressive marketing and false safety claims to get doctors to overprescribe painkillers.

https://alcoholstudies.rutgers.edu/the-four-sentence-letter-...

And yet large numbers of Americans (a significant majority according to the above) still blame opioid addiction on the individuals.

You can see the same general philosophy applied to issues like poverty and homelessness.

https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/most-us-a...

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#88

Post by dghlsakjg » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:06 PM UTC

piltdownman wrote: post #26

Aramco was the most prominent sponsor in the World Cup, and Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan owns Man City and was subject to a campaign calling on the English Premier League to hold Mansour to account for the UAE's role in the war in Sudan. Shades of grey, but I'll take the gambling companies any day of the week.

It doesn’t have to be an either/or. Neither is an option, too.

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#89

Post by ElProlactin » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:10 PM UTC

toast0 wrote: post #65

ElProlactin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking the US to do what is un-American. American culture is deeply individualistic. From a cultural perspective, a person who fails in their recovery from addiction is seen, ultimately, as being responsible for their failure. They'd typically be criticized for being weak and undisciplined, even if the fake kindness of American culture prevents most people from saying that out loud.

NASCAR no longer pursues the Winston cup, because tobacco advertising is banned. The Bud Bowl was discontinued becsause alcohol advertising is regulated. World Poker Tour was sponsored by (poker site).net instead of .com because advertising a real money poker site was unacceptable. I haven't watched in a long time, I dunno what their ads are like now. Restricting advertising is very American.

> ...because tobacco advertising is banned.

Except that it isn't: https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/tobacco-indus...

And let's not talk about how the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement had the perverse effect of making states financially dependent on tobacco sales. The annual payouts fluctuate based on cigarette shipment volumes so states want tobacco sales to continue. If tobacco sales stop, the states stop getting checks.

Most of the revenue goes to general fund deficits, infrastructure development, etc., not tobacco prevention and healthcare. And a bunch of states even securitized their future settlement payout revenue so that they could get money immediately.

Re: Premier league bans gambling sponsors

#90

Post by ElProlactin » Fri, Jul 31, 2026, 6:15 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #61

ElProlactin wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're asking the US to do what is un-American. American culture is deeply individualistic. From a cultural perspective, a person who fails in their recovery from addiction is seen, ultimately, as being responsible for their failure. They'd typically be criticized for being weak and undisciplined, even if the fake kindness of American culture prevents most people from saying that out loud.

"You're asking the US to do what is un-American. American culture is deeply individualistic." Americas have had no problem with blue laws historically [1], which are laws about what can be done on Sunday largely connected to religious observations, as well as laws on "vice" and entire vice police [2] organizations. It is no contradiction of individualism, and arguably a strong expression of it, to ensure that anythin…

The laws you're pointing to are just the other side of the same coin.

The Protestant roots of the US are arguably one of the reasons American culture is so heavily focused on individual responsibility and the idea that people who are addicts are weak and undisciplined.

https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/07/history-addiction-arden...