Last week, the UK High Court ruled that Sky Betting and Gaming has violated data protection laws by advertising to a problem gambler without obtaining valid consent.

The Flutter-owned brand was accused of using cookies to create an extensive profile of the problem gambler – who reportedly lost £45,000 over the past decade – to target him with personalised adverts via third parties.

Speaking on the latest episode of iGaming Daily, Ted Menmuir, SBC’s Content Director, said: “The claim was that Sky had collected a lot of data about this customer and they were using it to [produce] personalised offers and so on for him.

“His argument was that because he was a problem gambler, he couldn’t give consent despite the fact he’d initially given consent and he’d never withdraw consent to receive these marketing offers.”

Despite the ruling, Martyn Elliott, SBC’s Project Director, explained that Justice Collins Rice stressed that it doesn’t set the scene for wholesale advertising change.  Instead, since the individual case which stretches back to seven years ago, she acknowledged that “Sky Bet have tightened up their practices [and] the whole industry has as well”.

He continued: “I did quite a lot of work in digital marketing and I don’t see anything the gambling industry is doing that is particularly different, but you have this added element that they have to take into account, as the judge found in this case, of almost a moral issue.

“You also have to look at the question of to what extent can an individual operator assess the state of mind or illness that the particular player is suffering from when they might be suffering that across 10 or 12 operators. It’s a very difficult thing for operators to get right.

“I don’t think haranguing them in public, as we’ve seen a little bit over the weekend, is going to help the situation.”

Reflecting on the potential ramifications of the decision, Ted concluded that it is unclear if there will be a fallout given the complex nature of tracking the reach of advertising across multiple platforms.

Labour’s gambling reform failings

Elsewhere in the episode, Martyn and Ted also discussed accusations made against the Labour Party that it is deviating from the Gambling Review’s overarching objective to ensure that UK gambling is regulated in a “balanced manner for the safety of consumers”.

Shadow Gambling Minister Louie French claims that the government has failed to properly engage industry stakeholders and “wasn’t done in consideration of smaller businesses”.

Despite this, Ted explained that he carries confidence in Labour implementing the Gambling Review’s White Paper reforms in 2025. 

He said: “I think [Labour] jumped one big hurdle with the RET Levy. Advertising is the one that has hurdles for consensus so I think there will be progress in 2025.

“I think there will always be reformist voices in UK gambling but I think that the gambling review is in a better place because Labour has got a better overall vision of DCMS and its priorities and how that department has been structured and re-engineered.”