The strained relationship between journalists and gambling

Gambling is one of the world’s most popular pastimes.

A 2023 report from the Gambling Commission showed that 48 per cent of adults in the United Kingdom had participated in some form of gambling in the month prior to being polled.

Of those who do partake in monthly gambling, an estimated 24 per cent of people participate in online sports betting, equating to approximately 10 per cent of the United Kingdom’s adult population.

With such a high prominence in society, you could be forgiven for thinking that sports journalists can freely bet without a second thought, like most of the population, but that is not the case. The rules, both legally and morally, are far more complicated than you may expect at face value, and navigating them is imperative for all journalists.

No blanket ban, but a sharp line at the club door

Unlike footballers, sports journalists can usually bet on their sport, as there is no blanket ban on the practice. This means that famous bans, like the ones handed down to Ivan Toney and Sandro Tonali, do not automatically extend to the press box.

But there is an important distinction to make between different kinds of journalists: those who work for clubs, and those who do not.

Club journalists may write for their website, matchday programme, or even run the club’s social media channels. In the eyes of the Football Association, they are viewed the same as any club employee.

The FA’s rules are comprehensive, prohibiting not just the act of gambling, but also something as simple as encouraging somebody else to do it.

Having worked with a club, the rules, if followed exactly, mean that even simple “pub talk” along the lines of “Oh I fancy him this weekend, I’d have a fiver on that” is banned, even if you have no real inside knowledge to offer. For club employees, the rules could not be clearer: do not be involved in gambling on football in any capacity.

Outside the club, the picture blurs

Outside of club employees, the rules become much less clear, and, especially looking in from the outside, it can be difficult to know what is and is not allowed.

In simplest terms, there is no law to say that sports journalists who do not work for a club cannot bet on their respective sport.

So there are no issues, right? Wrong.

There may be no general law against it, but a journalist partaking in gambling can call into question other, very significant, laws. Namely, the Criminal Justice Act 1993 prohibits insider dealing. This includes the use of inside information to gain a benefit from gambling. Falling foul of this law will not just bear professional consequences, but can see a person imprisoned, causing a huge impact on their life.

How this impacts journalists can vary hugely. In the most obvious sense, a journalist who receives information from a source about a transfer cannot bet on the outcome of that transfer. Obvious, right? But it extends well beyond the world of transfers. Having information that a player is poised to start in a specific match causes a grey area. Betting on the specific player is a no-go, but whether that extends to markets around the wider match result is far less settled.

Where the law goes quiet, newsroom policy steps in

In many instances, this issue is made much simpler by internal policies, set out by media outlets to protect their own interests.

The New York Times is one such outlet that explicitly bans its journalists from betting on games that they cover, as part of their own ethics code.

In short, it helps to prevent any conflict of interest, and subsequently maintains higher journalistic standards. Because, for example, if you were reporting on Nottingham Forest versus Leeds United, a bet on the outcome sits uneasily beside the reporting itself, whatever the journalist’s actual intentions.

Many journalists would be able to put their own emotion to one side, but it is far safer, and fairer, for companies to implement their own blanket rule. For outlets, protecting the quality of their work is imperative for brand value, which means that such decisions are often seen as necessary.

But, of course, with there being no law against it, it is incredibly difficult for companies to enforce such policies, without a notable slip-up from anyone who falls foul of the rules — a bet posted publicly, for instance.

Largely, when it is a matter of internal policy, enforcement comes down to a matter of trust, rather than the FA’s betting rules, for example, which are vigorously enforced by bookmakers. Likewise, bets which raise suspicions of insider knowledge exploitation can be easily and routinely flagged for further investigation, but bets which cross only moral boundaries face no such action.

How often does it actually happen?

It is not rife, but of ten journalists polled on the matter, three admitted that they regularly place bets on games that they are working on, and two others revealed that they occasionally do.

Importantly, not everyone polled is banned from doing so by company policies, but it shows how prevalent the practice is generally.

Where this leaves journalists

Clearly, there is a huge demand for gambling. But the way that journalists navigate the minefield of rules and regulations makes it increasingly difficult for them to partake in it.

The safest option to avoid issues, legally or morally, is to avoid betting altogether, but evidence shows that that is not the done thing, currently at least.

But the fact remains that, in many instances, betting remains an entirely fun and acceptable pastime for journalists, just like any other member of the public. The rules are strict because they need to be, to ensure fairness and maintain standards, but when there is no inside information or risk of a conflict of interest, why should journalists be treated any differently from the fans they write for?