Sports Betting: A New Challenge for Social Intervention

Sports Betting: A New Challenge for Social Intervention

By David Pere Martínez Oró

In recent years, sports betting has become a phenomenon demanding the attention and responses of social intervention professionals, particularly in the field of addictions. The law regulating online sports betting was one of the last approved by the Rodríguez-Zapatero government in 2011. However, I would place the 2014 FIFA Men’s World Cup in Brazil as the debut of online sports betting platforms in Spain, and the 2018 World Cup in France as the trigger that cemented this phenomenon as a common form of youth leisure. Since then, the story of sports betting is largely familiar: an almost monopolistic presence of advertisements during high-level sporting events, an exponential increase in betting halls, social alarm, rising treatment demands, and so on. Beyond social perception, a near-ubiquitous presence in certain media spheres, and a danger looming over the youth, we observe numerous young people fervently betting. I want to dedicate this brief text to presenting two elements, among the many entwined with the phenomenon, that are not widely known: the betting community and the figure of the tipsters.

The betting community conducts its activity in the virtual space. Anyone with a simple internet connection, regardless of their place of residence, can participate in it. Social media platforms are the habitat of the betting community. Twitter, Facebook, and especially Instagram are the showcases for tipsters to promote their activity among potential clients. The goal is to connect them to where the community finds meaning: Telegram channels. These are the idiosyncratic and genuine context of the betting community, the pulpit from which tipsters proclaim their predictions. Channels are the cornerstone of tipsters’ commercial activity. All have at least two channels. The first, the free channel, “free” in their jargon, is the strategy to gain visibility, post predictions, advertise other tipsters and betting houses, offer giveaways and challenges, disparage other tipsters to assert they are the best, explain why they bet one way or another, or delineate the procedure for how to win bets. The “free” channel is a lure to stimulate as many followers as possible to hire their paid services. In the free channels, calls for bettors to pay for the premium are repeated ad nauseam. The second channel is the paid one, premium, where followers become clients because they pay between 20 and 50 euros per month to stay in a channel where the tipster offers a higher volume of predictions and, above all, better stakes and better odds of payment, or at least, this is the promise.

Tipsters are the key figure for understanding betting and the betting community. It literally means “forecaster.” They predict the results of a particular event through their Telegram channels (or other websites or mobile applications). Most represent a perverse role model for young people because they showcase a world of money and unattainable luxury. They present themselves as great experts in forecasting specific markets. Their reliability varies among individuals. Their main source of income is not betting but the affiliate programs of betting houses, i.e., recruiting new clients for them. The desire to earn easy money has attracted individuals from diverse personal backgrounds: former professional athletes, sports fans, upper-class offspring, statistics experts, showmen, schemers, hustlers, and even people with a dismal criminal history. The rhetoric of tipsters is based on claiming that if followers bet as they indicate, everyone will win loads of money.

The question we must ask is: if they make so much money betting, why do they dedicate themselves to forecasting? Why invest so much time attending to clients, complaints, claims, analyzing markets, sending messages, etc., when they could be counting stacks of bills thanks to betting? Perhaps the tipster’s answer would be that they want to ruin the betting house with the help of their followers. If this is their answer, why do they promote their followers to register and deposit money in a particular betting house? They could give any answer, but the goal is to earn income through the affiliate program. Betting houses, like so many other commercial sectors, have an “affiliate program” aimed at anyone capable of recruiting clients, either more proactively, like tipsters who send direct links and emphasize the advantages of registering, or more passively, for example, a company placing a banner on their website and the client reaching the betting house by clicking on it. On Telegram channels, tipsters only invite registration with betting houses and skip explaining the commercial relationship they maintain. There are two ways to participate in affiliate programs. The first is cost per action or CAP. Betting houses pay the tipster based on the clients they recruit. Some companies, specifically Spanish ones and those with less market share, pay a sum depending on the number of new clients who register. From 10 euros per person, if they recruit between one and ten people, or up to 50 euros if they convince more than twenty to register for casino games. The second is revenue share. Betting houses pay a percentage of the net losses incurred by a client recruited by the tipster. The revenue share a tipster earns is more substantial when clients bet on roulette, slots (virtual slot machines), or poker because losses are greater and quicker than in sports betting. The logic of revenue share means that recruiters, like tipsters, try to entice as many players as possible. The more money bettors lose, the more money they earn. Tipsters present themselves as the scourge of betting houses but work to ensure that the profits of both continue to grow.

In short, the tipster is the central figure of the betting community, but simultaneously represents a pernicious influence on younger bettors. Tipsters lack any ethics because they propagate false messages and show teenagers and young people a life of luxury and wealth when it is a sham designed to deceive them. Betting has become a leisure activity for a significant portion of young people; the great risk arises when they believe they can make a living from it. However, I must say that since the world of betting is built on smoke and lies, I foresee great effectiveness in most preventive strategies.

For more information:
Martínez Oró, D. P. (2021). El fenómeno de las apuestas deportivas en la juventud española. Barcelona: Icària.