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A Bill going through the Dail would if enacted ban gambling adverts in Ireland between 5.30am and 9pm.
Not only would this affect RTE’s domestic coverage but would also apply to British channels broadcasting in Ireland, including SSR and RTV. Both have said it would no longer be viable for them to broadcast to Ireland.
I would like to think that a bit of sense will prevail. Both SSR and RTV are behind pay walls and their audience are hardly going to be shocked by gambling adverts. Who does the Irish government think it is protecting here?
Unfortunately, expecting common sense in modern Nanny State Ireland might he hoping for too much:
At this rate, there will eventually be a ban on all internet betting discussion from UK or Irish IP addresses.
TRF may have to relocate to the dark web!
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"The Irish Labour Party, a much smaller party than its British counterpart and highly unlikely to hold power anytime soon, supports a total ban on gambling adverts.
FFS give it a another few years and it’ll be illegal to breath , all we’ll have on the telly soon will be adverts for tampax and bleach ….no hang on life’s now so grim they can’t advertise bleach in case you drink it
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
I read the article on the Racing Post site and found it hard to believe just what I was reading.
Not illegal to breath HDLG but maybe tax it as a new revenue source?
(opps giving them ideas there)
Thick stupid and braindead doesn’t begin to describe these people.
The nanny state strikes again.
good luck to allFurther update from The Irish Field. It’s 5 free articles a month so hopefully most can read it.
https://www.theirishfield.ie/news-racing-channels-under-threat-from-gambling-legislation-774871
‘Galloping along the seafront was good enough for the nags Southport’s shrimpers bought from the knacker’s yard – and it was good enough for Red Rum.
Salt-of-the-earth car salesman turned trainer Ginger McCain had observed horses eased back to fitness in the waves as a child.’
Some free ads of the great Rum out on his winning constitutional might smoothe the nerve ends and replace the gamble, and possibly inspire a new audience. This idea is the reason I never considered a career in advertising.
Did someone say rummy , I’ll leave the below , imagine the health and safety man watching the horses going down the dunes , from 1.44 Billy hanging on for dear life , there,s been classier chasers but Jesus h none as tough , Brian gave him a hard ride one afternoon on hated soft ground , stripped him down both sides , Ginger went for a drink believing he could have emptied him , 20 mins later he was getting watered down ….bucking and kicking
Pick 3 on Saturday champion 2025/2026
I saw Red Rum quite often over his career and was always struck by his health and well-being. In fact, I do not recall seeing any horse that so exuded health as Rummy did.
He appeared almost like he wanted to jump out of his skin.
Thank you the two for the two hugely interesting anecdotes.…Rum is as perky and fresh today as he ever was. His history will not be forgotten and he will live on well into the next millennium – 3023 if you want the exact date. Whether they are racing horses in a thousand years is another matter. Rum’s imposing statue may be moved by machines in around about 800 years time They are already in our restaurants !
When I was living in Germany many years ago now, I sat late into the night one night drinking and enjoying the company of a one legged jockey and a married couple who like me had the racing bug and who had partied the previous night with the Dunlop’s who had brought horses over. They had just met them coincidentally at the track and been invited for a get together with eats and drinks after racing finished where the whole team came together.
Our soiree ended in the early hours
A friend who bred a Derby winner (Sir Percy) used to drink late into the night with Ginger and once tried to encourage me to escape the citi lights and travel down and join them. I passed up on that and rather regret it. Fact is I was a car salesman myself for a short nine month stint working for Chrysler on the army bases in K town (Kaiserslautern). I wasn’t particularly good at it but it did present something I would have had in common.
To finish off the evening…this one legged jockey had us all in stitches with the yarns he related. He had a prosthetic leg and whilst the jockeys in Germany all new all about his appendage, he told us he was once riding in a jump race abroad and the jocks out there didn’t have a clue. He was nicely positioned in the lead with one jump to go, his horse jumped awkwardly at the last and landed badly and he felt his prosthesis detaching and on the run in he decided to let it go, but the jockey behind was totally shocked at what he was seeing – the leg had a boot on and looked as real. ! He complained bitterly the incident faltered his riding and cost him the race and there was an awful Hoo Ha and explaining to do in the stewards room.
Whilst we were laughing and catching breath, the jockey then removed his leg in front of us and quickly went into riding mode on an imaginary horse on the couch. Come on my son ! He was riding a real race !
.. He had his part missing but We were in a state of sustained electric shock all doubled up in pieces !
I rarely met racing people, in fact I was not heavily into racing at that time, not as I had been back in England – it was a low key sport, and you had to buy a special paper ( Die or Der Sportwelt… ), but when I relocated back to Frankfurt there was a racetrack there so took up the sport and attended regularly, at that track only. The bookmakers offices were very friendly and often served free cake (kuchen) and coffee as a gesture to regulars. It was all very friendly and the bookmaker at odd times would even sit with the regulars and chat. They had some wooden tables and chairs and people would be sat about studying form – there were narrow ledges around the perimeter of the shop for more privacy.
I have diverged somewhat from the topic of betting advertising but just to link it, the sport was rarely advertised in Germany, apart from a few posters possibly. The daily papers did not follow the sport, as I remember, apart from reporting possibly the big races like the German Derby.This issue is still going on, latest update:
“He is confident the newly appointed GRAI will employ a common-sense approach”.
That is not confidence I share. Common sense departed from the Irish political class a long time ago.
I am surprised Varadkar and his supporters have not had the opponents of the Bill arrested for “hate speech”.
The Minister has further responded in the following articles:
https://www.thesun.ie/sport/11876053/betting-law-minister-devastate-horse-racing-problem/
I really don’t see what banning adverts on gambling will actually achieve – I think people seriously over estimate the power of ads, it is almost as if they see them as a dark art that will (the minute someone sees it) will encourage them to immediately drop what they are doing and go out and buy/do whatever the ad is pushing.
Those that already have a bet are not the target audience and those that have never had a bet in their life are what…..all of a sudden going to rush online and set up an account (not as easy as it was or seems), transfer money from their bank account into it and then start gambling?
Ads work the reverse for me in that there are so many annoying/moronic AF ones out there that I immediately think to myself there is no way I am buying that just on general principle…..that is all under the assumption that I actually take notice of the ads in the first place……most of the tv I watch is usually pre-recorded (so I can skip forward through ads) or on streaming with no ads anyway.
Did people stop taking up smoking after ads were banned from tv?
Although there are specific rules on how/when you can advertising alcohol on tv, there is no actual ban to stop it outright, so why not apply those same rules or similar to betting adverts?
I believe recently the UK has a rule that gambling companies will not be allowed to use celebrities and sports stars to target under-18s. The new rules also state that gambling and lottery ads must not “be likely to be of strong appeal to children or young persons, especially by reflecting or being associated with youth culture.”
Of the two, which ‘vice’ is more easily accesible to new recruits….drinking or betting.
Well put LD I fully agree.
As for “celebrity” endorsed products I refuse to purchase anything they are involved with?The more I know the less I understand.
Political opinion, especially on the Left, is now very hostile to gambling, more so than it is to drinking. It is the one “vice” it has become OK to hate.
This is from the same political class not averse to a few vices of its own. I don’t suppose random drug tests in the House of Commons or Whitehall are going to be introduced any time soon.
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