bet365 denied Steven Caulker pundit role due to statements about gambling 

The company has confirmed that it decided Caulker would be unsuitable for the role.

UK.- The UK betting company bet365 has confirmed that it decided to rule out the footballer Steven Caulker from appearing as a pundit on a sponsored series due to his statements about gambling. The campaign group The Big Step had said that the former QPR and Tottenham player, now with Wigan Athletic, had been dropped from the programme because of his work tackling gambling addiction following his own experiences.

bet365 said in a statement to media: “Mr Caulker applied to appear as a guest on a video series solely sponsored by bet365 which is only published on an online video platform (not TV) by one of our sports publishing partners. During the guest approval process, we became aware of Mr Caulker’s own negative experiences with gambling which he has spoken about openly.

“We welcome the excellent work Mr Caulker has done to raise awareness of problem gambling – however, as a betting company, we felt it would be inappropriate for Mr Caulker to appear on a bet365 sponsored series of this type.

“In explaining these circumstances, we regret that our position was misstated by our media partner to Mr Caulker.”

In May, The Maritime and Commercial High Court of Denmark ordered the owner of bet365 to compensate several Danish athletes after it used their names and images without their permission in its marketing. Hillside must pay a combined DKK4.7m (€631,000) to the athletes in question.

The court found that the betting operator had posted images of the sportspeople on its social media content between February 21, 2019 and March 11, 2021. It also mentioned the athletes’ names.