the brilliantly leaping gazelle

I know it’s easy to criticise the pompous and self-righteous mutual onaism that exists between ‘The Guardian’ and it’s readers, but sometimes they just make it so easy, it’d be rude not to. And one thing I never am is rude. Offensive, maybe, obscene sometimes if I try hard enough, but never rude.

‘The Guardian’ proudly proclaimed in what it hoped would be a cause for celebration from everyone who read its, that basically they were going to cease carrying any gambling advertising on it. Not merely to cease it you understand, but in order to express the gravity of the situation that the same echo-chamber morality that ‘The Guardian’ specialises in, something more was needed. And so;

The Guardian bans all gambling advertising

Ban will apply worldwide to all of media group’s online and print outlets, including the Guardian, Observer, and Guardian Weekly.

The ban covers all forms of gambling advertising, including promotions for sports betting, online casinos and scratchcards. It will apply worldwide to all of the company’s online and print outlets, including the Guardian, Observer, and Guardian Weekly.

Of course, there was no space to detail how much revenue this would lose them or indeed when was the last time any such advertisements appeared in or on any of its outlets. I have Ad Block Plus on my computer so I don’t know. The sums involved could be huge, in which case congratulations and plaudits to them for putting their principles before profit, or it could be negligible, in which case it fully deserves the kind of judgemental opprobrium that it quite happily metes out to others. But instead they get their tube of journalistic lube out;

The decision to exclude gambling advertising from the Guardian’s publications follows the rapid growth of online betting on sporting events, aided by deregulation and the huge increase in the number of smartphone users. The US has recently embraced online betting on sport, following the lead of Australia and the UK, where gambling has exploded in popularity over the past decade.

Many media outlets are increasingly reliant on money from betting companies. British television channels have said their business models increasingly depend on advertising from bookmakers, while TikTok is trialling gambling advertising in Australia, and the US outlet Barstool Sports was bought outright by a casino group.

But not us, we have principles, uppermost being the one that involves amplifying our readers own likes – and in this case dislikes – back at them to make them feel thoroughly virtuous for having those likes or dislikes. I write readers, but then they’re not just readers are they? They’re also the proprietors, well those that keep funding it, anyway. I imagine that ‘readers’ of ‘The Guardian’, aren’t the target audience betting companies want to reach anyway, and that so it’s no great loss to them.

Just as I was about to post this blog, on a whim I decided to google ‘how much revenue does the guardian earn from gambling adverts’ and the first entry that came up was this one, from the Press Gazette. It carries the same sanctimonious waffle from some people who earn big pay checks there, but reading on, came across this

The Guardian’s chief advertising officer Imogen Fox told Press Gazette that globally, gambling advertisements “make up less than 1% of our revenues”, although she added it was “hard to quantify and it has changed over time”.

Mmm, as I thought, so making a big deal about banning something, something that they can use to differentiate their brand from other media outlets and also lift their readers ever higher upon the lofty peak of Mount Morality while doing so, at no great loss to them, isn’t that much of a ban is it?