Daily Junction.mobi portalSports · October 3, 2026 · The Conversation · 5 min
How football sold us beer and betting.
<div class="theconversation-article-body"> <figure> <img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/763552/original/file-20261002-60-ul8hjl.png?ixlib=rb-4.1.1&rect=0%2C44%2C1620%2C911&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" /> <figcaption> A football fan who spends the weekend watching Premier League matches on TV could be exposed to up to 27,000 messages about gambling. <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Videnskab.dk/Lærke Slot</span></span> </figcaption> </figure>
<span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/calum-smith-2680781">Calum Smith</a>, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-oxford-1260">University of Oxford</a></em> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/carolin-kilian-2680685">Carolin Kilian</a>, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-southern-denmark-1097">University of Southern Denmark</a></em></span>
<p>The new Premier League season is now well underway and for many football fans, that means crowded pubs, beers with friends and betting on favourite teams. These rituals can often feel like a natural part of the game.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09687637.2023.2219370#abstract">football’s close association with alcohol</a> and gambling did not emerge by accident. <a href="https://karolinum.cz/data/clanek/2441/AUC%20Kinanthrophologica%205-19%20jones%202_2015%204483.pdf">Over decades</a>, sponsorship deals, advertising campaigns and commercial partnerships have made drinking and betting feel inseparable from the sport itself.</p>
<p>The scale of that exposure is striking.</p>
<p>Over the course of a weekend during the Premier League season, a viewer may see as many as <a href="https://www.bristol.ac.uk/media-library/sites/business-school/documents/EPL%20Premier%20League%20Report%202025.pdf">27,000 gambling messages</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/sep/27/calls-for-regulation-of-gambling-ads-in-football-as-number-of-promotions-soars">up to 54 pro-gambling messages per minute</a> of match time.</p>
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/health-gap-187974">Health Gap / Sundhedskløften</a> is a collaborative series from The Conversation UK and Denmark’s Videnskab.dk exploring what the two countries can learn from each other when it comes to health and wellbeing.</em></p>
<p><em>From cycling and alcohol to inequality, healthcare and everyday habits, the series looks beyond hospitals and medical treatment to explore how culture, politics and society shape the way people live – and how healthy they are.</em></p>
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<p>As researchers in public health in Denmark and the UK respectively, we are both struck by how deeply embedded drinking and gambling have become within football culture.</p>
<p>Looking at both countries side by side offers an interesting comparison. Denmark and the UK are often seen as quite different in their policy and welfare decisions. Yet both have allowed alcohol and gambling industries to become highly visible parts of the football experience.</p>
<p>This matters because alcohol and gambling can cause serious harm. Alcohol is one of the biggest causes of preventable early death. The figures for 2023 show that in total, <a href="https://www.healthdata.org/data-tools-practices/interactive-visuals/gbd-results">around 23,600 people died</a> from alcohol-related deaths across the two countries.</p>
<p>Gambling, including sports betting, can also cause serious financial problems and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-020-01045-w">affect people’s health, wellbeing, and relationships</a>. Research shows that about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-021-10093-4">2% of Danes</a> and <a href="https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/report/gambling-survey-for-great-britain-annual-report-2024-official-statistics/gsgb-annual-report-2024-consequences-from-gambling">3% of Britons</a> experience problem gambling.</p>
<h2>Lax regulation</h2>
<p>Despite this, both countries have taken relatively lax approaches to regulation. In a cross-country comparison, we found Denmark to be among the <a href="https://www.dkfz.de/fileadmin/user_upload/Krebspraevention/Download/pdf/Buecher_und_Berichte/2025_Public-Health-Index.pdf">bottom five out of 18 European countries</a> when it comes to statutory alcohol control. Alcoholic drinks are cheap and widely available, with only a few restrictions on alcohol marketing.</p>
<p>The UK performs somewhat better, with higher prices and tighter licensing rules for alcohol sales, but alcohol advertising and promotion remain deeply embedded in everyday life and sport.</p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/14550725251350445">A similar picture emerges around gambling</a>. Denmark has adopted a more liberal approach to gambling regulation than many other Nordic countries, particularly since the market was opened up to <a href="https://igamingexpert.com/regions/europe/denmark-advertising-debate/">greater private competition in 2012</a>.</p>
<p>Advertising rules mainly focus on the content of adverts. For example, preventing companies from presenting gambling as a solution to financial problems or directly targeting children, rather than limiting the overall volume of marketing exposure.</p>
<p>In the UK, gambling regulation has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.q16">also been criticised</a> for placing too much emphasis on individual responsibility rather than the wider commercial environment surrounding betting, with suggestions that UK gambling policy protects the gambling industry more than it prevents harm to gamblers.</p>
<p>Indeed, the UK’s <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2005/19/contents">2005 Gambling Act</a> framed gambling-related harm largely as a matter of individual responsibility, rather than focusing on the industries and advertising that promote and profit from problem gambling.</p>
<h2>‘Personal responsibility’</h2>
<p>This language of “responsibility” runs through both industries. Since the mid-2000s, gambling campaigns in the UK have encouraged people to “gamble aware” and “when the fun stops, stop”. Drinkers are given similar advice to <a href="https://www.iard.org/welcome-to-iard">“drink responsibly”</a> in both countries. Yet, these industries rely heavily on high levels of consumption for their profits.</p>
<p>In the UK, for example, those consuming above the recommended guidelines account for almost 70% of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/add.14386">alcohol sales</a>. <a href="https://www.gamblingwithlives.org/key-gambling-stats/">For gambling, it’s even worse</a> – 86% of online betting profits come from just 5% of customers.</p>
<p>But there are signs that things are starting to change. In the mid-1990s, six Premier League clubs were sponsored by alcohol brands. Today, there are none, and alcohol sponsorship has disappeared from the league entirely. Gambling shirt sponsorship is also set to be phased out in the Premier League from the 2026-2027 season.</p>
<p>Denmark is likewise introducing <a href="https://skm.dk/aktuelt/presse-nyheder/pressemeddelelser/spilpakke-1-bred-politisk-aftale-skal-bremse-spilafhaengighed-og-beskytte-boern-og-unge">new rules</a> to tighten gambling advertising regulation. This includes a “whistle to whistle” advertising ban, preventing adverts ten minutes before, during and ten minutes after games.</p>
<p>Taken together, these changes reflect a growing recognition that messages about “personal responsibility” sit uneasily alongside constant advertising and industries that depend heavily on excessive use for most of their profits.</p>
<p>More broadly, it also raises an important public health question: how much of what we think of as personal choice is shaped by the commercial environments around us?</p>
<p>So when you’re next watching a football match, you might like to count how many gambling adverts you see. And when you see a promotional offer linking football and beer in the supermarket, pause to think why drinking and betting have come to feel so closely tied to the game in the first place.</p>
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<p><em>This series was commissioned as part of a partnership between <a href="https://www.videnskab.dk/">Videnskab.dk</a> and The Conversation, where articles are published in English and Danish</em>.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/282681/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p>
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<p><span><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/calum-smith-2680781">Calum Smith</a>, Research Fellow in Population Health, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-oxford-1260">University of Oxford</a></em> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/carolin-kilian-2680685">Carolin Kilian</a>, Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Public Health, <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-southern-denmark-1097">University of Southern Denmark</a></em></span></p>
<p>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-denmark-and-britain-have-in-common-football-beer-and-betting-282681">original article</a>.</p> </div>
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