The Mysterious Companies Who Sponsor Premier League Teams

there was a time not all that long ago when premier league shirt sponsors appeared to be quite wholesome a time when wolverhampton wanderers were sponsored by doritos leeds united was sponsored by strongbow and newcastle united was sponsored by northern rock good old-fashioned salt of the earth failed banks genetically modified corn dripping in saturated fats and booze companies all right so maybe the world of premier league shirt sponsorship has never been squeaky clean but at least you knew what doritos strongbow and northern rock did and what they were selling you might be slightly less familiar with w88 who are crystal palace's shirt sponsors this season and the services that they provide w88 are new arrivals on the english football scene far from it in fact before sponsoring crystal palace they sponsored aston villa and before villa it was wolverhampton wondrous between them these deals have been worth tens of millions of pounds and if you're thinking well that was a waste of money because i've barely noticed them and still couldn't tell you what they do well that's alright you see because those adverts weren't aimed at you assuming that you are watching this video in england the uk in general europe america and well pretty much anywhere outside of asia these companies of which w88881 but there are many sponsor english football clubs almost solely in an attempt to get the eyeballs of viewers in china a country that is about 5 000 miles away from villa park selhurst park and molyneux it is a murky world of largely untraceable money which has flooded into the premier league and indeed the championship since 2016 from companies that even experts in the fields of marketing gambling and business in asia know either very little or absolutely nothing about so in today's video i thought we'd take a look at just some of the 23 gambling companies that sponsor premier league teams what they do where they're based and why they consider it to be worthwhile to sponsor a football team in england for millions of pounds whilst either not actually having any business interests in the uk or having them purely for aesthetics gambling is illegal in china and it has been since the chinese communist party took control of the country in 1949 during china's communist revolution unlike in a lot of other countries where you have some fairly draconian rules around gambling that aren't all that strictly enforced china takes the outlawing of gambling pretty seriously routine raids are carried out at premises believed to be hosting illegal gambling activity and the sentences for those found to have broken the law tend to be severe even a fairly liberally dished out 10-year prison sentence doesn't deter a lot of people from trying though so lucrative are the earning opportunities in china's illegal gambling industry in july of this year 46 575 people had already been prosecuted in china not arrested but prosecuted for operating or facilitating gambling activity primarily illegal casinos that came in light of a government report which claimed that illegal gambling which is all gambling in china of course had risen by almost 30 percent in the first half of 2021. despite china's best attempts though in a country with as close to an all-seeing state as you will find almost anywhere in the world their attempts to create a gambling free nation have repeatedly proven to be futile for a start china has two state-run lotteries which it claims aren't gambling then you have china's special administrative regions of hong kong and macau where gambling is allowed and where wealthy citizens from mainland china routinely flock in order to have a flutter of some kind the hong kong jockey club which holds a monopoly over not just wages on horse racing but basically all sports in hong kong is the single biggest taxpayer to the hong kong government and races in hong kong generate about 10 times as much revenue as horse races anywhere else in the world meanwhile macau overtook las vegas in gambling revenues all the way back in 2007 and by just 2014 macau's gambling industry was already seven times larger than las vegas yes china's appetite for gambling seems to be insatiable in a country of 1.4 billion people but what about those who want to gamble on more than the lottery at a time when either it is not convenient or they simply cannot afford to travel to hong kong or macau well they much like everyone else around the world take to the internet and gamble online the only difference being that when they do so they're not only most likely making a pretty poor economic decision they are also breaking federal law and running the risk of severe punishment of course they cannot gamble on chinese websites because any online bookie that was set up in china wouldn't last five minutes instead in recent years these customers have been served by foreign bookmakers and particularly those based in the philippines when rodriguez duterte took office in the philippines in june 2016 he pursued a policy of closer ties with china it makes sense right china is the dominant economy in the region will soon be the dominant economy in the world and by some measures already is as part of duterte's plans he opened up the philippines to chinese workers relaxing visa requirements for chinese citizens around 3 million chinese people entered the philippines over the next couple of years though duterte's government apparently failed to take note of how many stayed and got jobs an estimated 100 to 150 000 though are known to have stuck around and to have taken jobs in one very specific field you guessed it gambling also in 2016 at the same time that the philippines opened up the floodgates to chinese workers they created something called the philippine offshore gaming operator or pogo for short the pogo is the philippines regulator for gambling companies that are based in the philippines but serve clients in markets outside of the philippines as far as duterte's government is concerned the practice is a win-win they get to employ people in the philippines who will themselves pay tax in the philippines and these companies will also pay tax in the philippines meanwhile all of the not so nice stuff about gambling you know the addiction bankruptcies and mental health problems that would all be outsourced to other countries what's knots are like the conditions of retaining a pogo license are supposed to dictate that you restrict anyone in the philippines regardless of nationality from gambling with you along with any filipino nationals who are living overseas and anyone in any country where gambling is illegal of course that would include china but the fact that around 80 percent of the people working for pogos are chinese suggests that perhaps that condition isn't being perfectly observed by all of those involved what duterte hoped would be a win-win has actually ended up giving him a fair few headaches china is unhappy that the philippines is essentially facilitating gambling in china leading to tensions between manila and beijing when closer ties with china is one of duterte's primary goals meanwhile pogos have also caused significant unrest in the philippines where the vast numbers of chinese workers are accused of causing spikes in criminality and prostitution with only 17 of all pogo employees actually being filipino nationals pagkor which is the philippine amusement and gaming corporation and i hope you're not getting too confused with all of these anagrams had even suggested creating self-contained communities of chinese gambling industry workers within the philippines in order to prevent disruptions of the local population and law enforcement the chinese embassy in manila basically responded by saying come on i know we're not huge on human rights but lads that sounds a bit dodgy to which presumably china's weaker population must have collectively sighed and thought to themselves if only you took such a consistent line on labour camp say you don't seem to be too fussed in xinjiang anyway in order for these businesses to be viable they obviously have to attract chinese customers and that is easier said than done regardless of the appetite for gambling in the country since gambling is banned in china so too are any adverts for gambling which means that making people aware of your existence as a company is perhaps the biggest hurdle that these companies face in attracting chinese gamblers the solution a number of them have decided and in case you have forgotten that this is a youtube channel about football is to sponsor football teams and particularly premier league teams the premier league is absolutely huge in china china is the league's largest single audience with 300 million fans which is about five and a half times the entire population of england so since 2016 a number of these companies have taken to sponsoring english football teams from championship strugglers all the way to champions league winners and very little effort has been made to disguise what they are doing in some cases these companies haven't even had functioning web addresses in the uk just landing pages saying something along the lines of coming soon take aston villa's sleeve sponsors who appear on much of their online marketing ubau or ob bet or ob sport villa are a big club european champions no less with aspirations of returning to the big time and a new boss stephen jarrod you would imagine that their sponsors are a pretty reputable outfit and a fairly big deal you know maybe i'll even place a wager with them oh hang on this is what their website looks like or their landing page i should say since that is all it is not to worry what about hth bet they are the official betting partner of both leicester city and manchester united their logo accompanied by chinese writing can be seen on the advertising hoardings at old trafford the theatre of dreams ladies and gentlemen now they must surely be the real deal okay let's head over there ah oh no how annoying it doesn't look as though they are up and running yet either coming our way soon apparently in fact i don't know about you but there seems to be a striking resemblance between those two websites to me hang on let's just take a quick look again at the ob bet and hth bet websites alongside one another yeah they definitely look a bit similar and you know feature the exact same wording that's a bit odd isn't it well actually it's not you see if i scroll down a little bit further you will see that both of these websites are going to be powered by tgp europe once they are up and running you know whatever that might be tgp stands for the gaming platform and tgp europe is a company based in the isle of man for obvious reasons which holds a uk operator's license from the gambling commission now getting an operator's license in the uk is notoriously time consuming and difficult with lots of red tape and hoops to jump through so tgp offers these overseas firms a service whereby they don't actually have to do anything they just stick their logo on a white label website which is run by them and huzzah there you have it you've sort of kind of got a gambling business in the uk of course the websites aren't very good in my opinion i guess and some of them aren't even up and running but none of that really matters since the uk audience isn't what you're interested in there are already lots of dominant players and early movers in the uk gambling industry wrestling any business from them would be a timely and expensive process within an already fairly saturated market besides even if you did succeed in doing that you'd likely have to split your profits with tgp since that is normally how those partnerships work if you check out the partners page of tgp europe's website you won't actually find ob bet or hth bet listed on there the latter of whom also sponsor wolfsburg leel and ac milan and at one point appear to be claiming to sponsor euro 2020 though uefa never included them among their own list of partners but you will find the likes of spot op who sponsor leeds united and previously west ham one two or twelve bet who have sponsored the likes of sevilla wigan athletic and hull city and fun 88 whose sponsor newcastle united's shirt having previously sponsored burnley shirt and who also have a long-term partnership with tottenham hotspur i could go on there are a lot of them and it is not hard to tell that they are being run by the same people as white label firms i mean here is the fun 88 website and here is the spot up website notice anything this stuff is absolutely rife and it doesn't just stop with premier league football teams i kid you not whilst i was midway through writing this video i received this only slightly redacted email from a company called onexbet i don't know why i'm acting surprised because whilst the timing might seem bizarre i receive these types of messages all the time one ex bet are a particularly interesting case study though since their history is shady even by bookmakers standards believed to be owned by russian millionaires exile to cyprus one ex-bat was founded in 2007 and is licensed in the small island of curacao in the caribbean sea off the coast of venezuela that is all normal enough now i suppose but one expect gained huge notoriety in 2018 when they began sponsoring a string of major sports teams events and competitions including the likes of chelsea liverpool and tottenham oh and barcelona clearly none of these teams had done much due diligence on one expat or you know like everyone else just didn't care so long as the deal was worth enough cash since it didn't take the sunday times much digging to produce an enormous expose on them in 2019 the newspaper exposed the fact that onex bet operated semi-pornographic gambling rooms allowed bets on children sport and streamed live cockfights cockfights there refers to the age-old bloodsport involving cockrells just to be clear the cockfights were not part of the semi-pornographic content that aspect in case you were interested involved topless croupiers and dealers dealing cards or spinning roulette wheels in live casinos pogos have found that games that simulate a real-life casino experience though not always necessarily topless are among the most popular with chinese consumers and you have to gain a separate license with the pogo in order to be able to operate them some of you may recall that over the summer norwich city announced a 5 million pound sponsorship deal with a company called bk8 only for the deal to be scrapped just three days later when people began discussing the fact that bk8 social media profiles were full of scantily clad heavily sexualized women and their youtube channel feature the same women doing things like eating sausages and bananas in rather suggestive fashion apparently norwich city didn't want to be associated with that kind of thing john terry had no such complaints when the revelations were made about one expat the three premier league teams that they sponsored all pulled out of those deals but they were soon replaced with other similar arrangements you might be wondering why any of this matters it all seems quite far removed a scandal involving china and the philippines where english football is only a pawn in these companies games and in many ways that is exactly what it is but of course in allowing these sponsorships premier league teams are the facilitators of that business model and everything that comes with it i'm sure many of you watching this video will know of someone a friend or family member who has suffered from a gambling addiction or at the very least some other form of addiction well chinese people are no different they are just as prone to addiction just as prone to making decisions with horrible financial ramifications and just as prone to having gambling ruin their lives securing the first deposit of a gambler in china is said to be valued at 500 us dollars by these foreign betting companies that is not because most people will end up gambling around 500 it is because a significant enough number of people will develop a serious gambling addiction and will gamble huge amounts of money thus dragging that average up and making new arrivals so valuable these bookmakers want the addicts the ruined lives that is their jackpot but whilst chinese problem gamblers suffer from all of the same difficulties as problem gamblers in the us the uk and the rest of europe they benefit from none of the same charities or support networks that offer what little lifeline addicts in this country have for example since gambling is illegal in china there is no gambling commission no gamble aware no gam care a chinese gambler is more likely to be arrested since they have broken the law if their problem gambling is discovered then they are likely to receive any support it is worth noting by the way that it is not just asian betting firms with landing pages in the uk and names you've never heard of that are profiting from chinese customers bet365 who are headquartered in stoke and whose founder peter coates owns stoke city and is a very affable man to talk to is the largest bookmakers in the world customers staked a grand total of 64.49 billion pounds with the company in 2018-19 but where was that money state a guardian investigation in 2014 accused bet365 of making a significant amount of its money from customers in china finding that the company frequently changed its chinese web address to make it harder for regulators to shut them down that they had created a large call center in staffordshire staffed by chinese speaking workers and that they had constructed a complex payment system that allows it to take bets placed using china's currency bet 365 denied any wrongdoing which is fine but they refuse to disclose to this day the geography behind their revenue and profits in their annual accounts claiming that quote a geographical analysis of turnover has not been given as in the group of the directors such disclosure would be severely prejudicial to the interests of the group end quote why would it i can't see any good reason why it would i'll let you come to your own conclusions if you are wondering why the uk government and the premier league have been so slow to act on this well the answer as it quite often does is likely to have a lot to do with money a number of mps have dragged their heels when it comes to any gambling regulations or inquiries because they are up to their eyeballs in freebies and cash courtesy of bookmakers meanwhile many premier league teams claim that they need the cash that these deals provide as it is a vital source of income for them to exist but is it really the premier league just signed a new 2 billion pound tv deal with nbc to broadcast games in the united states on top of the 5 billion pound uk deal that they agreed to earlier this year and amongst many many others whilst these sponsorship deals are not insignificant sometimes worth as much as 10 million pounds that is a backup fullback in today's money for a lot of these teams and if they weren't doing these deals it's hardly like they would be getting nothing whatsoever they might only get say six or seven million pounds from a more reputable company and hey who knows maybe that would be better for your kids that might make you a more attractive prospect of fans more people might buy your shirt and you might not be associated with semi-pornographic [ __ ] fighting scandals the cockfights weren't semi-pornographic that is uh i'm conflating the two but you get the idea it all seems a little bit short-sighted to me but then again that tends to be how finances in football operate either way it does seem likely that at long last the government and the premier league are going to ban these types of deals in the imminent future reports suggest that ministers have finally decided that foreign betting firms probably shouldn't be able to sponsor premier league teams and there is a push for a more extensive gambling ban perhaps even including uk firms as well as awareness of the harm inflicted by the industry is better understood by a wider audience so that is it for today's video which was sponsored by one xbet no not really i shouldn't think that they would have enjoyed it but i appreciate them thinking of me just as i appreciate all of you watching today's video hit the like button if you enjoyed it let me know your thoughts down below in the comments and make sure that you are subscribed and have notifications turned on for hi tc7s you can also find me on social media on either twitter or instagram i would recommend twitter but you know whatever floats you vote via the username at hritc7s on both should you wish to do so

Channel: HITC Sevens

Views: 188,137

Keywords: HITC Sevens, Football, Soccer, Premier League, Shirt, Sponsors, Sponsor, Companies, Leeds United, Newcastle United, Wolves, Crystal Palace, Chinese, China, Gambling, Philippines, Fun88, W88, Sbotop, Money, Advertise, Documentary, Investigation

Id: xhf7Z3zvx5M

Length: 22min 35sec (1355 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 27 2021