cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/72546182

“Big money [from online gambling] displaced retail brands, banks and other sectors. From the National Federation of Soccer to clubs — including federations, digital platforms, traditional media, and all kinds of content creators and influencers — betting companies bought space and exposure,” Poli said. “Everything that connects the game to the fan has become a billboard for betting.”

Their influence also transformed the economics of sports journalism — for many journalists and creators, betting companies became their most reliable source of revenue. Poli said the end of such a significant source of advertising would inevitably put pressure on media companies’ budgets, potentially leading to layoffs, and put independent content creators in a difficult position.

“In the case of influencers,” he said, “it’s already been brutal. […] They will have to seek new sources of revenue, likely less generous ones.”

…

Online gambling’s financial influence over Brazil’s sports media grew along with another trend: the rise of “identified sports journalists,” or reporters who have publicly disclosed which teams they support.

…

But despite the impact of the ban on their finances, some identified sports journalists have expressed support for the measure as online gambling’s impact on public health has become clearer.

According to the Brazilian federal government, suicides among people with a gambling disorder skyrocketed between 2018 to 2025. Public health services related to pathological gambling went up about 140% during the same time period, representing an estimated cost of 38.8 billion reais (about $7.7 billion U.S. dollars) per year.

In an interview with investigative reporter Paulo Motoryn’s Substack newsletter Hungarian Nights, Ubirajara Iglecio, an identified sports journalist known to his followers as Bira and who covers Santos, the former club of soccer legend Pelé, was critical of betting companies. While he sympathized with journalists affected by the ban, he said the impact of gambling addiction on public health was the greater concern.

Of particular note for Australia, the entire reason the social media ban happened to youth was it was pushed by online gambling companies who didn’t want to have to deal with legal repercussions of dealing with youth and so then we chose to go down that fork rather then recognize the absurd danger sports gambling poses to people’s health.