Sports Betting: "When The Fun Stops, Stop."

Picture the scene: Kick-off is on the horizon and your favourite betting tipster has just shared his carefully researched bet builder. You have £4.85 left in the account, and you vowed to yourself that you would never gamble again after the last bitter disappointment. Your mates are describing their bets in a childlike manner you’ve never seen from them before, and you feel left out of the fun. So, you cave into the unrealistic whim that a player you barely know is going to have three shots on target and another player you're equally unfamiliar with will commit two or more fouls.

60 minutes in, the bet is looking dry, you attempt to cash out, but your attempt is feeble as your betting app refuses to load. Hold on, the player you barely heard of has just had two shots on target in quick succession. 75 minutes in and he is subbed off. You hurl vile abuse at the manager at his blasphemous decision; does he not realise you have just lost out on a beautiful profit that only a genius like yourself could have conjured up. So, when did data creep into our approach to football and how we bet and what makes betting so addictive?

Gambling was legalized in the UK in 1960, leading to interest from business tycoons and the emergence of betting giants such as Coral, William Hill, and Ladbrokes. During the 1980s, sports betting was still heavily regulated, and bookies were encouraged to keep their business discreet despite its legality. It wasn't until the 90s, when games were encouraged to be televised, that a sports event had to be televised to place a bet on it. Sports betting was no longer a discreet practice. Only in the last decade or so has data become so ingrained in football and therefore in the ways we bet on it. It's hard to imagine a time when people placed their bets purely based on the rhetoric they read on the back pages of their favourite tabloid or from the drunken opinions of their mates down the pub.

In 1996 a revolution was sparked when Opta Index Limited was founded and subsequently contracted by Sky Sports to provide data analytics for the Premier League 96/97 season. Fast forward 26 years later and you can’t go a day without encountering some idiot on Twitter harping on about XG or expected goals. Of course, they aren’t really an idiot because this new jargon and ways of analysing the beautiful game is what makes betting so much more appealing and interesting. Never have I been so keen to study the disciplinary record of Stuart Atwell. Maybe it would help if I knew what he’d had for breakfast that morning as well.

One notorious twitter tipster creates his own cheat sheets before each match, a tapestry of football data or a pick n’ mix out of which you can construct the perfect bet builder. There is however a danger of this new wealth of data causing betting to become more of a chore than a fun little vice. But it does make it more interesting from the perspective of a football nut because you can combine your own delusional knowledge and then back it up with reliable data.

What makes betting so addictive then? Well, the main factor is the thrill you get when you win a bet. You're constantly searching for that high thereafter just like any other drug. Even when a bet loses, it might have almost won, creating a false sense of hope that encourages the better to continue in hopes of getting lucky next time. Peer pressure is another factor that makes betting appealing, especially when you see your friends’ eyes light up after a win. Combine this with the potent excitement of betting, and you have the perfect recipe for a compulsive gambler.

However, it's important to stress that although football betting is ultimately a fool's paradise, if it remains a fool's vice where sensible limits are enforced, then it probably isn't a massive problem. But if you find yourself outside BetFred on a Monday morning demanding "I want my money back" repeatedly in an aggressive manner then I suggest you may want to consider a new hobby. When the fun stops. Stop.

Don’t end up like this guy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3aDO8P-BAM