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Comment by seanhunter | Hacker News Reader

For people not in the UK, gambling adverts during live sporting events are absolutely insane. If you're not on the BBC[1] you're literally getting at least 2 or 3 gambling adverts every ad break if you're watching any sort of sport, and all the billboards, players shirts etc feature gambling companies. I'm actually in broadly favour of allowing a well-regulated gambling industry as it's a pastime that a lot of people enjoy and I think the government should mostly let people get on with things but the situation at present is completely crazy. For people who have a gambling addiction and want to quit it must be pretty much impossible to watch any sport.

[1] The BBC is publicly funded via a license fee that is compulsory if you have a television so it has no adverts

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This is basically the same situation in the US as well. It’s kinda sad that the sports industry across the board are all beholden to these companies now. Makes you really think about any close calls by the officials/referees. A LOT of money involved now, and it appears to be on a very sharp upward trajectory. Legalizing sports betting is one thing, but constantly throwing it in everyone’s faces is a whole different situation.

The gambling ad style that bothers me the most is, e.g., YouTube channels doing paid advertising within a video. It's typically in the tone of, "Join me and my subscribers who are winning $X on Sports Betting Dot Com!"

I know the average person might not be so stupid to think they will automatically win when engaging in gambling, but the ads feel inherently dishonest and scummy nonetheless.

I don’t watch sports these days so I wouldn’t notice, but I’m surprised gambling is now advertised in the states. It wasn’t like that in the 80s and 90s.

I hereby declare sports betting a honorary member of the poverty industry.

> The BBC is publicly funded via a license fee that is compulsory if you have a television so it has no adverts

Childsplay! In Germany you have to pay the equivalent fees regardless of whether you have any way to even access it, or want to, or care. It's okay, it's "only" like 18€ per month (!!!).

>so it has no adverts //

Not quite true. It has adverts on the Friday Night spot, and probably on Breakfast TV, and the One Show (evening talk show) -- they're just posed as "we chat to $actor who has a movie out now", or "$author has a book or now, here they are to talk to us". But they do disallow small businesses, and they only advertise their own media offerings (and no, they're not just 'trails' as they sometimes don't even tell you when it's on).

Maybe it's better overall, to I only see it a couple of times a year and it seems to adopt all the worst traits of commercial TV; even if there adverts are less intrusive.

>>The BBC is publicly funded via a license fee that is compulsory if you have a television

No, it's only compulsory if you watch live TV broadcasts as they would be shown on TV. If you only watch Netflix and other streaming services(other than BBC iPlayer), or only use your TV for a games console/blu ray player then you explicitly don't need a TV licence. It takes 30 seconds to confirm you don't need the licence online and then you're exempt. I've not paid it for over 10 years at this point as we never watch actual TV in this house.

Same here, haven't paid a Tv licence in years. Even told them I don't need one. Doesn't stop the idiots sending me threatning letters every month.

They also claim it's required if you stream or record any live broadcast to any other device, even if it's on Amazon or YouTube.

https://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one

It's now like this in Canada as well since they allowed sports betting.

> [1] The BBC is publicly funded via a licence fee that is compulsory if you have a television so it has no adverts

No, the license fee is compulsory if you have a TV that is connected up to receive off-air TV programmes.

No aerial? No licence.

Aerial doesn't matter any more (for a number of years), for example, watching live (broadcast) TV on a computer still needs a license.

If the computer is a laptop, and you have a license at home, and you don't plug it in then you're covered away from home too, fwiw.

Does anyone watch live TV in real time any more?

Sports fans. But yeah, all BBC online TV content also needs a license (it didn't in the early days of iPlayer); and recently they added a delay to podcasts (which you can't buy separately) if you're not a license holder.

No-one is prepared to pay me to watch BBC content, so I don't.

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