Everyone knows that sports and online betting are perfect bedfellows. There are numerous online casinos that also offer sports betting as well, which means that many of the sporting themes are carried through from the sportsbook to the casino. Not only do they offer the most popular sports themed slot game – such as the popular Liverpool slot game, but they also use sports stars to promote their websites and services. Many of the top online casinos use some of the world’s most prominent football teams and players to advertise their casinos no less.
Here, we will look at one of the most famous sponsorship deals between an online casino and a football team and it’s players:
Ajax: Sponsored by Unibet
The popular Dutch football team, based in Amsterdam, auctioned the club’s right to the sponsorship of the team players. Massive sportsbook and casino site, Unibet won the auction and the right to sponsor the team. Although the details aren’t widely known of the agreement, it is said to be a mutually beneficial multi-year deal, worth eye-watering sums of money.
This deal will also see squad players such as Edsin Akvarez, Steven Bergwin, Jurrien Timber and others also being sponsored by the company. The team, as part of this, will advertise the online gambling site in every game they play for the years in which the sponsorship is active.
Unibet is a famous gambling site all over the world – and is licensed in the Netherlands, so this could be very beneficial for them.
Should Online Casinos Be Able to Sponsor Football Teams and Players?
The idea of getting well-known and well respected football players to sponsor online gambling sites is pretty controversial. Gambling can be addictive and it arguably, shouldn’t be promoted to younger football fans. But, when an online casino sponsors a football team or player, the casino then has the advertisement rights.
This means that this industry will be more exposed to young people who watch these matches. Some consider this to be a serious and worrying issue, which is why, in the past few months, football clubs such as Bolton Wanderers, Tranmere Rovers and Forest Green have issued a jointly signed letter that requests the total ban of online casinos and gambling institutions from sponsoring football players and teams.
The letter underlines the fact that football clubs and players are starting to become dependent on the money brought in by online casino sponsorship. This will mean that football clubs will find it difficult to extricate themselves from this type of sponsorship deal.
Some experts even believe that soon, the law will prohibit online casinos from bidding for sponsorship deals – and any recent sponsorship deals will become invalidated. Obviously, top online casinos that use this form of promotion are taking steps to prevent such an occurrence.
How Unibet Want to Avoid This
As a reaction, online casinos along with well-known football clubs have issued a statement that they want to do something to change this viewpoint.
Right after the announcement of the Unibet sponsorship deal, they announced that they would work together with the team on a number of projects to make players more aware of the possible harm of online gambling addiction.
They also stated that they would be investing money in mental wellness and launch new programs to promote responsible gambling. These should help to minimise the casino’s risk of over-exposure to vulnerable fans. Whether this will work? Only time will tell.
Conclusion
Online casinos and betting sites that sponsor football players and teams can indeed be harmful. However, the initiatives that are being taken by sites such as Unibet may help to counteract this. So, if sponsorship rights do remain with the casino, then both the Ajax team and its players will benefit from the deal – as could the local gambling community, with the addition of extra responsible gambling resources.
