The 2020 European Football Championship is a unique one in many ways. It is the first competition of its sort to take place five years after its predecessor, and it is the first tournament that eleven countries get to host. Footie fans have always had a craving for international competitions, and they eagerly await each one. Since this European Championship got postponed a year due to the ongoing global pandemic, interest in the tournament has been super high, particularly from Brits.
However, problem gambling is now a hot topic in the UK, stemming from a YouGov survey conducted in early 2020, which showed that 2.7% of adults in Britain have impulse control issues when it comes to betting. Thus, responsible wagering has entered the public discourse, and there has been mounting public pressure on UK broadcasters to suspend betting adverts from airing during Euro 2020. In Britain, the BBC and ITV air all the tournament’s matches, and they have both agreed to reduce gambling ads significantly compared to the rate with which they aired them during the 2018 World Cup.
That said, the negative spotlight thrown on sports betting and gambling in general, in recent times, has not dismayed Brits from indulging in this pastime. Traffic at sites that aggregate the best gambling platforms, such as bettingsites.ng sky-rocketed before Euro 2020 began, as most UK sportsbooks report that betting frenzies are in progress.
Brits’ Gambling Intentions Regarding Euro 2020
The mentioned entity above, YouGov, is a British firm that operates in the data analytics sector. Its 2020 problem gambling survey may have caused quite the stir, but it released equally interesting research in May of 2021 that shows how most Brits plan on approaching gambling on this year’s European Football Championship.
About 35% of survey responders claimed that they would bet on the Euro guided by their instincts, while 22% said that their bet would get determined by a team’s previous results. Only 2% of punters said they would aim to implement a specific strategy or system when choosing what markets will make their way onto their slip.
Furthermore, over 72% of Brits said that they would only bet on individual matches, and 76% claimed that they planned on only wagering via an online sportsbook.
UK Sportsbooks Are Hoping to Line Their Pockets
Everyone knows that 2020 was a brutal year for the gambling sector. However, bookmakers were more than hopeful that the highly anticipated Euro 2020 would reignite a fire in sports betting fanatics. The foundation for that enthusiasm laid in the figures that many bookmakers posted after the Euro 2016 concluded. For example, Unibet’s gross winning revenues for the second quarter of 2016 were £126.6 million. Euro 2016 betting’s contribution to this figure was 15.5%.
Given that England ranked as one of the favorites to claim the European crown, UK-based operators believe that once the summer concludes and they total their numbers, Brits would have bet more on this competition than the previous one.
