A downward spiral. Having started betting at just 16 years old with his father’s bank card, Hugo (first name has been changed), now 21, he quickly got into the sports betting gear. The Dijon teenager starts with small sums, often two euros, before betting more and more and losing large sums.
“When I was 18 years old, I had already lost at least 3,000 euros. And from my 18 to my 21 years, it really is at least 20,000 euros ”, he assures BFMTV.com
“It’s a real crazy addiction (…). You don’t really control things anymore, all you think about is gambling to win back,” he says.
500 million euros bet during the World Cup?
Sports betting is running at full speed in this period of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The Online Gambling Regulatory Authority (ARJEL) estimated before the start of the competition that a total of 500 million euros will be wagered in the context of online betting.
Debt, social isolation or even depression, the practice, however, involves risks. Concerned to see the event attract new players and ultimately create addictions, Santé Publique France launched a prevention campaign on the practice for the first time in October.
The health agency particularly warns young people who are numerous, like Hugo, to gamble. 72% of gamblers are between the ages of 18 and 35, according to the 2014 and 2019 Public Health France Health Barometer surveys. To which are added minors, although the practice is officially prohibited for them. More than a third of young people between the ages of 15 and 17 say they have already gambled, according to a survey by the National Gaming Authority (ANJ) in 2021.
On the professional side, we confirm this trend. “It is becoming a disease of the young,” Guillaume Davido, a drug addict from the Bichat hospital in Paris, told BFMTV.com.
Several addiction associations also say they receive many young people in consultation for this type of practice. “It is a much younger population than for the others (addictions). They are often under 34 years old,” while the older ones are more likely to resort to the lottery or horse racing, the general secretary told BFMTV.com of the association Addictions France. Herve Martini.
When these players go to the consultation, many times they already have behind them a pathological practice of several years that they cannot get rid of and often accumulate other addictions, such as alcohol and tobacco.
Advertising campaigns that promote social success
Young people with limited resources, and mainly urban ones, have been the priority target of advertising campaigns organized by gambling operators for some years now.
With their slogans “Put the daronne in the shelter”, “Great odds, great profit, great respect” or even “BetclicKhalass”, its graphics taking up the codes of the manga or its trendy music, the pubs multiply the winks in the spotlight of this audience. His message: gambling allows you to earn the respect of others, but also to support your family financially.
“All for the daronne”, still proclaims the operator Winamax in a campaign last spring. This call for feet to young people from popular neighborhoods had already caused controversy during the broadcast during Euro 2021, but it is not to the taste of the ANJ.
The regulatory authority requested the withdrawal of these ads in March, considering that they “carry the message that sports betting can contribute to social success”, which contravenes the rules governing the promotion of games of chance. Ads are removed, it’s a first time.
The phenomenon is such in certain districts that the Seine-Saint-Denis department decides to act as well. It is the first that has launched a prevention campaign on the subject in mid-November, when the World Cup approaches. The slogans of the big game operators are kidnapped there this time to denounce the dangers of this practice. “Vuelta al daronne” or “Big bet, big loss, big mess”, this time the posters warn.
“It’s Harder to Let Go” online
Unlike their elders, young gamblers generally gamble almost exclusively online. “It’s reminiscent of the world of video games,” says Hervé Martini. But this trend can further reinforce the addiction, as it allows you to play at any time of the day and night, without being judged by the appearance of your peers, as might be the case in a cafe.
“They get email reminders, they can customize their app. (…) It is a much more vulnerable public”, assures the addictologist. “It’s much harder to deal with, they find it harder to let go,” she says again.
Especially since, unlike the lottery, players usually start betting because they are soccer fans and have knowledge in this area. “They have the belief that they are experts and will be able to predict a match”, which gives them an illusion of control, also believes Stéphane Magarelli, addicted to BFMTV.com.
While the lottery has only two draws per week, there are also several dozen soccer matches per week in the European championships alone. The betting possibilities multiply.
Debts and emotional crisis
The consequences are numerous in the players. “They sleep worse, suffer from anxiety disorders, depression,” lists Guillaume Davido. When they arrive at the consultation, many are also in debt.
Hugo confesses that, for his part, his intensive practice of sports betting contributed to a sentimental breakup and deteriorated relations with his parents.
“They were disappointed to see that crazy amounts and salaries vanished at my age,” he says.
Financially, he regularly says he’s overdrawn. If he claims “I don’t owe anyone anything,” he admits to going illegal on occasion to get money. “I did 2-3 carjackings and scams by offering fake predictions on the internet. It was just so I could bet,” he confesses.
Despite this, he believes that he is “half mastering” his practice and can stop for periods of 2-3 months. He tried to get himself banned from online sites, as allowed by the ANJ, but the method didn’t work as he continued to gamble in cafes.
Calls for better regulation of practice
Faced with this phenomenon, the associations demand greater regulation of advertising. Addictions France calls, in particular, for promotional offers to be better regulated, taking inspiration from the Evin law. The latter strictly regulates advertisements for alcoholic beverages that are, for example, prohibited on television and in the cinema and cannot be broadcast on the radio at certain times.
The PCF senator of Seine-Saint-Denis Fabien Gay, for his part, presented a bill on December 1 to better regulate sports betting advertising. He recommends in particular that “the use of visual and sound imaginations and other processes attractive to young people be automatically prohibited.”
The government also expressed its desire to address the problem, through a letter sent to the ANJ at the beginning of December, according to France Info. The Secretary of State for Youth, Sarah El Haïry, calls in this letter to go “further”. in limiting ads. Among the proposed measures: the addition in ads of a statement about the statistical probability of losing.
Waiting to find out if sports betting promotion campaigns will be more regulated in the future, the associations are on alert during this World Cup period. “All sporting events are for us a period of vigilance,” says Hervé Martini.
Hugo, for his part, does not plan to stop betting in the short term and is currently betting on the World Cup matches. Just before the quarterfinals, he estimated that he had already lost more than 1,700 euros.
Source: BFM TV
