Do advisors need to watch out for sports betting addiction?

The football season is now underway, baseball is headed for the postseason, the English Premier League is four games in, the NBA returns late in October and, perhaps most crucially, hockey returns at the start of October. These are heady months for sports fans. One thing that any viewer may come to notice, though, is how widespread sports betting and fantasy sports ads have become. One CEO sees the potential for financial risk in these widely advertised forms of gambling.

Tyler Thielmann is the President & CEO of Spring Financial, a fintech lender with the stated goal of helping Canadians improve credit. He notes that while fantasy sports and even sports betting are not inherently harmful in and of themselves, they can open the door to addictive behaviour that can have serious negative consequences for Canadians. He adds that financial advisors can help their clients in these situations, though, leveraging their unique insight into a client’s finances and their position as trusted advisors to steer clients onto a safer path.

“At Spring Financial we’ve seen many people go down the path of pretty habitual sports betting and we see fantasy sports as a possible entry point into that,” Thielmann says. “There are many entry points that have come up over the last four or five years in Canada and it’s gone from something that nobody could access to something that’s getting promoted everywhere.”

Thielmann is quick to note the distinction between fantasy sports — where participants draft players and participate in a fantasy league — and full-blown sports betting. He notes a connection between the two, however, with many fantasy sports platforms also offering sports betting. He notes, as well, that neither activity is inherently financially dangerous, but the trouble with gambling is that it runs the risk of becoming addictive.

What is particularly dangerous about sports betting, Thielmann notes, is that it’s largely being done on mobile phones. Where previously placing a bet might mean going to a casino or a bookmaker’s, now Canadians can bet from their couches. They get pinged with betting notifications. They get the gratification and gamification of an online platform. All the while they could be doing significant financial harm to themselves.

The transactions made via an online sports betting app are all logged and tracked. Where someone could take out $100, go to a casino, blow that money and walk away without much of a paper trail, any habitual sports betting is tracked. Lenders and underwriters can see that transaction history and it can come to have a hugely damaging impact on someone’s credit score. Just as the transaction records are where a sports betting habit can begin to do serious financial damage, Thielmann says that advisors can use their insights into transactions to intervene with clients.

Using their insight into a client’s bank statements and transaction history, advisors can start to notice trends and areas of concern. Those could be openings for conversations around the financial and credit implications of a bad sports betting habit. Thielmann notes, however, that these issues are often deeply complex and can blur the personal and professional lines. He suggests that advisors avoid judgemental language or outright confrontation. Rather, he thinks advisors should inform their a clients about the potential risks to their overall financial goals, credit scores, and ability to obtain key financial products like insurance or a mortgage.

“Knowledge is power. I think just informing clients that statements are asked for more frequently now and if somebody sees something that is considered risky on your bank statement that might harm your chances of getting credit,” Thielmann says. “I think that's helpful for any advisor to say, and whether that's any type of risky transaction. Anyone will ask questions if they see large transfers of money, or repeated sports bets. I think as advisors deal with their clients they should keep a focus on how things like sports betting can impact someone’s ability to acquire credit.”