{"id":234687,"date":"2022-09-29T11:31:23","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T16:31:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?p=234687"},"modified":"2022-09-30T04:19:29","modified_gmt":"2022-09-30T09:19:29","slug":"english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/","title":{"rendered":"English Football League Clubs Took Cut of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some English soccer clubs acted as affiliate marketers for SkyBet<\/a>, accepting a percentage of their fans\u2019 gambling losses, The Guardian<\/em> has discovered. These revenue-sharing partnerships between English Football League clubs and the bookmaker were discontinued at the start of the 2019-2020 season.<\/p>\n

\"Accrington
Accrington Stanley, above, made \u00a35,000 in one year from an affiliate deal with SkyBet, according to documents seen by The Guardian<\/em>. (Image: Accrington Stanley)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI’ve been trying to prove this for the best part of four years, and yesterday it fell into my lap,\u201d tweeted Rob Davies, the story\u2019s author Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour club is incentivized to encourage you to lose money,\u201d he concluded. \u201cIf you ruin your family on SkyBet, the club you’ve given your love (and cash) to takes a cut.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smoking Gun<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The smoking gun is a copy of Accrington Stanley\u2019s commercial revenue report, according to Davies. The club plies its trade in League One, the third tier of English soccer. The report outlines revenues it was entitled to through EFL Digital, a division of the English Football League (EFL).<\/p>\n

These include a \u201cshare of losses [\u2026] from accounts registered in your club name to Sky Bet through our affiliate partnership.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The EFL comprises tiers two to four of English soccer and does not include the English Premier League.<\/p>\n

Bad Optics<\/strong><\/h2>\n

It\u2019s bad optics for English soccer at a time when its financial partnerships with the gambling industry are part of the public agenda. At the same time, clubs have been accused of financially exploiting their fans through so-called fan token partnerships<\/a> and other crypto schemes.<\/p>\n

Moreover, most casual bettors tend to back their own team. This means the clubs would likely have received more money from the affiliate scheme when they lost games.<\/p>\n

It is unknown if the teams had similar terms on wins, or whether their percentages for victories was the same as losses.<\/p>\n

Of course, losing is normally a highly unprofitable strategy for a soccer team.<\/p>\n

Accrington Stanley, a club most famous for being referenced in a British TV spot for milk in the 1980s, made \u00a35,000 (US$5,500) in one year from the scheme, according to the report. A Premier League club, whose supporters in the UK might total several million, could be looking at a significant sum if similar deals existed in the topflight.<\/p>\n

\n

The Guardian<\/em> previously asked each EPL club directly whether they benefited from gambling affiliate schemes. Crystal Palace, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, and Manchester United said they didn\u2019t. The rest declined to comment or didn’t respond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cWhen the EFL and SkyBet renewed its longstanding partnership for the 2019-20 season, we placed a greater focus on putting safer gambling at the heart of the agreement,\u201d the EFL said in a statement to The Guardian<\/em>. \u201cAs a result, the previous affiliate scheme was discontinued.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile some clubs do receive revenue from legacy sign-ups that occurred prior to the new agreement, the affiliate scheme in place was phased out, and all sign-up links via EFL Digital channels have been removed,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some English soccer clubs acted as affiliate marketers for SkyBet, accepting a percentage of their fans\u2019 gambling losses, The Guardian has discovered. These revenue-sharing partnerships between English Football League clubs and the bookmaker were discontinued at the start of the 2019-2020 season. \u201cI’ve been trying to prove this for the best part of four years, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":234688,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,82966,1074],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nEnglish Football League Clubs Took \u2018Cut\u2019 of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"SkyBet had historical affiliate deals with soccer clubs in the English Football League, according to Accrington Stanley\u2019s records.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"English Football League Clubs Took \u2018Cut\u2019 of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SkyBet had historical affiliate deals with soccer clubs in the English Football League, according to Accrington Stanley\u2019s records.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Casino.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-09-29T16:31:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-09-30T09:19:29+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Stanley-Accrington.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"765\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@casinoorgphilc\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Casino_Org\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Philip Conneller\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/\",\"name\":\"English Football League Clubs Took \u2018Cut\u2019 of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Stanley-Accrington.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-09-29T16:31:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-09-30T09:19:29+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\"},\"description\":\"SkyBet had historical affiliate deals with soccer clubs in the English Football League, according to Accrington Stanley\u2019s records.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Stanley-Accrington.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Stanley-Accrington.jpg\",\"width\":1360,\"height\":765,\"caption\":\"Accrington Stanley, above, made \u00a35,000 in one year from an affiliate deal with SkyBet, according to documents seen by The Guardian. (Image: Accrington Stanley)\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"News\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Sports Betting\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbetting\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"English Football League Clubs Took Cut of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Casino.org\",\"description\":\"Latest Casino and Gaming News\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b\",\"name\":\"Philip Conneller\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png\",\"caption\":\"Philip Conneller\"},\"description\":\"In Philip Conneller\u2019s eight years with Casino.org, he has covered the gaming industry from Las Vegas to Macau and everything in between. He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. Contact Philip at philip.conneller@casino.org.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/muckrack.com\/philip-conneller\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philip-conneller-1495a48\/?originalSubdomain=uk\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/casinoorgphilc\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/phillip-conneller\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"English Football League Clubs Took \u2018Cut\u2019 of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses","description":"SkyBet had historical affiliate deals with soccer clubs in the English Football League, according to Accrington Stanley\u2019s records.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"English Football League Clubs Took \u2018Cut\u2019 of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses","og_description":"SkyBet had historical affiliate deals with soccer clubs in the English Football League, according to Accrington Stanley\u2019s records.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/","og_site_name":"Casino.org","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Casino.OrgNews","article_published_time":"2022-09-29T16:31:23+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-09-30T09:19:29+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1360,"height":765,"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Stanley-Accrington.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Philip Conneller","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@casinoorgphilc","twitter_site":"@Casino_Org","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Philip Conneller","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/","name":"English Football League Clubs Took \u2018Cut\u2019 of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Stanley-Accrington.jpg","datePublished":"2022-09-29T16:31:23+00:00","dateModified":"2022-09-30T09:19:29+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b"},"description":"SkyBet had historical affiliate deals with soccer clubs in the English Football League, according to Accrington Stanley\u2019s records.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Stanley-Accrington.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Stanley-Accrington.jpg","width":1360,"height":765,"caption":"Accrington Stanley, above, made \u00a35,000 in one year from an affiliate deal with SkyBet, according to documents seen by The Guardian. (Image: Accrington Stanley)"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/english-football-league-clubs-took-cut-of-fans-skybet-losses\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"News","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sports Betting","item":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/sportsbetting\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"English Football League Clubs Took Cut of Fans\u2019 SkyBet Losses"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/","name":"Casino.org","description":"Latest Casino and Gaming News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/58769b72851c8cf117fb58ca150ebf8b","name":"Philip Conneller","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/cropped-5-1-96x96.png","caption":"Philip Conneller"},"description":"In Philip Conneller\u2019s eight years with Casino.org, he has covered the gaming industry from Las Vegas to Macau and everything in between. He currently focuses his coverage on gaming law, white-collar crime, global money laundering, tribal gaming, politics, and regulation. Philip was the original features editor for poker\u2019s Bluff Magazine and editor for Bluff Europe, which he helped launch. His writing has also been featured in ESPN, Forbes, Time Out, The Sun, and The Daily Star, as well as iGaming Business, eGaming Review, and numerous other industry news and tech websites. His news stories for Casino.org\/news have been linked by The Washington Post, The Daily Mail, People Magazine, and Jimmy Fallon's Tonight Show, among many others. Philip once won $20,000 with 7-2 off-suit. He has been reprimanded for unwittingly playing Elton John\u2019s piano on two separate occasions on both sides of the Atlantic. He became a writer because he is a lousy pianist. Philip lives outside London with his wife and children, where he spends his time agonizing about Arsenal FC. Contact Philip at philip.conneller@casino.org.","sameAs":["https:\/\/muckrack.com\/philip-conneller","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/philip-conneller-1495a48\/?originalSubdomain=uk","https:\/\/x.com\/casinoorgphilc"],"url":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/author\/phillip-conneller\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234687"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.casino.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}