The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC) has issued a staunch defence of betting marketing amidst widespread political scrutiny of the British bookmaking and casino industries.

It is widely expected that betting marketing budgets will shrink this year as a result of online gaming taxes nearly doubling from 21% to 40% in April, a key measure of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves’ November 2025 budget.

William Hill and 888 owner Evoke, Ladbrokes Coral owner Entain and Paddy Power, Sky Bet and Betfair owner Flutter Entertainment all intend on cutting marketing budgets by 20%. In Entain’s case, the company has already cut Coral’s sponsorship of the Coral Cup at Cheltenham.

According to the BGC, these measures will have a significant economic impact. A BGC-commissioned report conducted by Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) estimates that the betting marketing and sponsorship contributes £506m in gross value added (GVA) to the overall business supply chain.

This covers £251m from internal activity and £255m across the wider supply chain. A further £84m was spent on marketing employee salaries, across a workforce of 1,400 full-time employees while another 9,900 jobs were indirectly supported by advertising and sponsorship.

“These data are likely to underrepresent the economic contribution to the UK economy of gambling advertising and sponsorship as they do not include induced GVA and employment,” the BGC asserted.

“Induced activity represents the secondary impacts on the economy stemming from the subsequent expenditure of employees and shareholders of the businesses in question, and those in the supply chain, as a result of the income they receive.”

Deaf ears?

The BGC has been making its case against regulatory restrictions for some time, but there is a risk that the people the trade body really needs to get on its side, the politicians, are becoming numb to its arguments.

MPs from various parties are becoming increasingly receptive to the idea of gambling reform. For the most part, recent criticism of gambling has focused mainly on the perceived proliferation of betting shops and adult gaming centres (AGCs) on high streets. However, television advertising and sports sponsorship continues to be featured in debate.

In a ministerial questions session last month, for example, long-time gambling law reform advocate Alex Ballinger MP, of the Labour party, remarked that ‘football fans are already heavily exposed to gambling advertising’, during a discussion around FIFA’s betting data and streaming deal with Stats Perform.

Also, the BGC is not the only organisation lobbying MPs with research. The gambling reform lobby also regularly commissions reports, with the University of Bristol, Gambling With Lives (GWL) and Coalition to End Gambling Ads (CEGA) all particularly active.

The University of Bristol published a study last year claiming that football viewers are bombarded with thousands of ads per game, though the researcher’s methodology and classification of a ‘gambling message’ could be questioned – as it was on IGaming Daily that same week.

Researchers from the university have also been very active in referring gambling ads and social media posts to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). CEGA, meanwhile, argues that consumers are being “bombarded by gambling promotions” and are “under-protected from harms”.

Betting marketing and the black market

The BGC has also raised a commonly cited argument in its report – the black market. The presence of illegal operators in the British betting ecosystem has been routinely cited in many debates around how the sector is regulated.

This has included in the discussion around affordability checks, during the very heated conversations around tax raises last year, and extensively during the ongoing debates around marketing, advertising and sponsorship.

The BGC cites figures that the illegal market equates to £4.3bn, and the trade body’s concerns are backed up by other organisations. The Gambling Commission has estimated that around 10% of British betting volume goes through illegal operations.

Regulated operators are increasingly concerned about how the black market promotes itself, particularly the use of influencers and the branding of offshore casinos as ‘non-Gamstop casinos’ – in doing so specifically targeting vulnerable self-excluded customers.

In its report, the BGC has pointed to how illegal operators and their affiliates assume names and brands associated with charities and educational institutions. The use of defunct domain names became very prevalent last year, with one example seeing the website of the former Brexit Party taken over by a ‘non-Gamstop casinos’ webpage.

Again, however, while the BGC’s arguments are not invalid, having been backed by the Commission, Gamstop, and charities like Deal Me Out, it seems politicians are dead set on pushing for more stringent regulation, and industry concerns and lobbying are increasingly falling on deaf or uninterested ears.