The ‘streamer’ DjMaRiiO, who chairs one of the teams in the competition, published a tweet promoting the app that allows minors to make sports bets without real money
On February 3, EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA, from the Prensa Ibérica group, published this report warning of the increase in users of a free app for iPhone and Android, with no age restriction, called Omada. A French application that imitates bookmakers and that, despite the fact that it does not require money, is teaching and encouraging minors to use sports betting.
Several parents of minors warned that their children were beginning to develop behaviors compatible with gambling addiction, and who had learned about the application through DjMaRiiO, a renowned streamer who organizes sporting events such as “El Partidazo de Youtubers 3”. DjMaRiiO uploaded a tweet (which he received, Omada revealed) promoting said app and thanking them for using his match for their betting market.
EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA contacted DjMaRiiO on several occasions, without receiving a response. He streamer He is also the president of Ultimate Móstoles, one of the teams that compete in the King’s League, the popular soccer tournament organized by Gerard Piqué and in which Ibai Llanos, Iker Casillas and Sergio ‘Kun’ Agüero participate.
We also contacted them, who did respond immediately, distancing themselves from Omada and from any bookmaker. “They do not have permission to include matches from our competition”, They assured this newspaper. But, just a few hours later, Omada offered among his bets the match between Saiyans FC and El Barrio, from the King’s League. And not only this free app: Several bookmakers also had matches from Gerard Piqué’s competition among their markets.
This newspaper has contacted the Kings League again, from where they have responded immediately, clarifying in the first place that “we do not have any type of agreement or relationship with Omada or with none of the bookmakers that also include Kings League InfoJobs matches”.
However, they have also explained that “after analyzing it with the legal department to study how to avoid it, we cannot prevent them from using the names of the teams or the competition to include the days in sports betting, the same as happens with any another competition or sports club in other bookmakersas long as they do not use their logos, shields, etc.
That is, although the King’s League has remained out of the online gaming business (They do not have any of these companies among their sponsors, nor have they promoted their application, as DjMaRiiO did with Omada), The bookmakers have jumped on their bandwagon, because it is a popular competition. And they offer their matches. But from the organization of the tournament they cannot prevent this from happening, since these houses act to the limit and do not use elements (logo, shields, etc.) that could lead to a lawsuit. Thus, even if the bookmakers do not have permission to use these matches, they do not need it either.
One of the bookmakers that advertise the competition matches is Omada, a French app that has become the concern of more and more parents of children and adolescents, because it is a virtual bookmaker. It works just like a real one, offering markets in real matches. The caveat is that real money is not used; It is played with fictitious currency. But it promotes and encourages that its users adopt the habit of betting daily on sporting events. All this, without any type of age restriction.
EL PERIÓDICO DE ESPAÑA has spoken with several of the parents who warn of the danger that this application entails: “My son is 11 years old, he was addicted to sports betting and I was not finding out, is what I can tell you. The first thing he did when he got up was check the results on his brother’s cell phone. He had already acquired that habit. It does not matter that he does not play money, he was behaving like a real gambler and he is not even a teenager yet, “says one of his parents in a telephone conversation.
wake up
“Wake up. Knicks-Lakers start in a few minutes”. It is the push that the Omada application sends at 1:01 in the morning to the mobile phone. It bombards you with notifications: notifies you of the matches that are about to take place or of the results that have already been produced. Announce the odds that may interest you with attractive messages: “Inter Milan odds x1.80 play against Atalanta odds x3.90. Come play!”. More inputs than a real bookmaker, in a free app that can be downloaded without restriction from the Apple Store or the Android Play Store, and which is promoted with the slogan: “Bet without ruining yourself”.
Although it does not give real money, the rewards are constant. The application faithfully imitates the interface of a bookmaker. Just for connecting, it offers you coins and diamonds (which are the fictitious currency used in the app) daily. So that you never stay at zero and can continue betting. It also proposes challenges for get bigger prizes and make rankings to compete with other users.
When you log in, in addition to collecting the relevant rewards, there is a list with the next matches that are going to be played in football, basketball, tennis and rugby. There the user has to choose which event to bet his money on. With the example from before, if 100 coins had been bet on the victory of Inter Milan against Atalanta (as it finally happened), the balance in the account becomes 180 coins.
But it is that, in addition to the event that the user chooses to deposit their coins, the system forces them to pronounce on all the parties on the list. Although he is going to put money only on Inter, he also has to choose the result of the Knicks-Lakers. And with each hit, the system sends a reinforcing and spurring push: “Kill up to the elbow. You just won 40 coins in the Celtics-Lakers game” or “Who’s in charge here? Your friends will already imagine that it’s about you: you just won 90 coins in Girona-Barcelona”.
In contact with this newspaper, Clement Da Silva, one of Omada, insists that “what we do is fight the betting houses. We understand the point of the parents, we have also had this controversy in France, which is the country where We have more users (350,000), in England which is the second, in Spain or Italy, where we have about 40,000 users. But we do a lot of communication work so that they understand that we are just a game that follows the sporting activity. We fight addiction, because playing with us means not losing money.”
In fact, Clement explains that in Spain they launched “a website called ‘Close your account’ in which, if any user sends us proof that they have closed their account at a bookmaker, we send them a gift. A t-shirt or whatever. We do a lot of prevention work, because we know we have a young audience, and in our DNA is to fight the real bookmakers and that they come with us, because we are only a social network in which no money is paid”.