Sky Bet accused of manipulating a vulnerable player

In 2018, Sam (name changed), a British compulsive gambler, was plunging further and further into the abyss of online gambling. After taking out dozens of loans and experiencing a deep depression, he found himself once again trapped by a seemingly innocuous advert sent out by Sky Betting & Gaming.

Targeted, insidious marketing

On the face of it, the Sky Bet email appeared to be just another offer: a £100 bonus on a £400 deposit. But for Sam, the email wasn’t just a promotion – it was a trap. He was already in the grip of a gambling addiction, unable to resist the incessant messages.

‘I wasn’t able to ignore them. They had this grip on me,’ he confides.

In the space of two years, he received more than 1,300 e-mails from Sky Betting, an average of just over 3 a day, which he systematically opened. The targeting was so precise that it became impossible to get away from it.

This type of marketing, based on aggressively collected personal data, has been condemned as illegal by a UK High Court judge. Sam, although he had not explicitly unsubscribed from the offers, was not in a position to consent to such profiling. According to the judge, he was unable to make independent decisions because of his addiction. This decision could become a precedent, changing the way gambling companies will have to treat their at-risk customers from now on.

Sam’s request to recover his personal data

When Sam realised the extent of his gambling addiction and the role Sky Betting had played in worsening his situation, he decided to recover all the personal data the company had collected on him. So in 2018, he submitted a personal data access request (SAR) to Sky Betting under European data protection legislation (GDPR), hoping to gain a better understanding of how his information had been used to fuel his addiction.

Sky Betting initially responded evasively, even suspending his account after he asked questions that were considered ‘unusual’. This reaction worried Sam, who thought his attempts to get answers had been seen as suspicious by the company. However, after several exchanges, Sky Betting finally agreed to provide him with documents detailing the extent of the data they had collected.

Personal data used to manipulate

The response he received was a real shock. Sam discovered that the company and its partners had accumulated hundreds of thousands of pieces of information about him, analysing not only his gambling habits but also his online behaviour. This data included information about his favourite games, his deposit habits, the times he played, the promotions he responded to, as well as his geographical location.

But that wasn’t all: Sam also learned that this information had been shared with a number of third parties, including advertising giants such as Facebook and Google, as well as specialist profiling companies. This left him with the impression that he had been constantly monitored and manipulated by a system he had no control over, reinforcing the idea that he had been caught in a marketing trap designed to prevent him from escaping addiction.

‘I thought, well, if they had all this data on me, why didn’t they use it to protect me better?’ asks a disillusioned Sam.

The realisation became even more bitter when he realised that despite the wealth of information Sky Betting had on his profile, no alerts had been issued to identify his state of vulnerability. Instead, the company had classified him as a ‘high-value customer’ and targeted him even more aggressively. Sam couldn’t help but wonder why his data hadn’t been used to offer him help, instead of furthering his financial losses.

The documents revealed a chilling reality: as he struggled with a deepening addiction, Sky Betting’s strategies only exacerbated the situation. Instead of seeing him as an individual in distress, the company had seen him as a commercial target, and this had led to marketing choices that intensified his addiction, such as personalised offers that seemed impossible to ignore.

Examining his data and how it had been used for purely commercial purposes was a turning point for Sam. There was no doubt in his mind that this excessive use of his personal information, with no regard for his welfare, was an illegal act. The system put in place by Sky Betting was designed to maximise profits, while failing to protect a customer who was clearly in difficulty.

In an effort to publicise what had happened to him, Sam hoped that his legal battle would open the eyes of the public and regulators to the predatory practices of online betting giants. In demanding his data, he had not only sought answers about his own case, but also highlighted a method that he believed made gambling operators complicit in exacerbating the suffering of vulnerable players.

A complicit or blind company?

Sam’s case raises a fundamental question: how can a company collect so much information without realising the seriousness of its customers’ situation? Sky Betting, which was acquired by Flutter in 2020, has said that it ‘fundamentally disapproves’ of the ruling and is considering an appeal. The company is defending itself by claiming that it has put in place player protection measures.

However, experts believe that this ruling could be a turning point for the gambling industry. According to Ravi Naik, Sam’s lawyer, the ruling could mark the end of abusive practices such as ‘tick-box consent’ and mass surveillance of player behaviour. Practices which, in his view, led to the worsening of his client’s addiction.

What is at stake in this decision for the future of the industry?

The gambling industry is under increasing pressure, with more and more calls for the regulation of advertising targeting vulnerable players. In 2022 and 2023, the Gambling Commission imposed new rules requiring operators to better identify and protect their at-risk customers. However, the question remains: why have these practices been tolerated for so long?

Criticism is also mounting against the use of data to exploit players’ vulnerabilities. Charles Ritchie, of the Gambling with Lives association, condemns this systematic exploitation of human weaknesses.

For him, ‘operators are using data and algorithms to target people with more incentives to gamble when they should be using that data to meaningfully intervene.’

Hope for the protection of vulnerable players

Today, Sam says he is ‘totally vindicated’ by the ruling. He hopes that it will serve as a wake-up call to regulators and companies in the industry, so that tougher measures are taken to protect the most vulnerable gamblers.

‘I lost 10 years of my life to gambling. I believe I – and a lot of others – should have been protected better,’ he concluded.