EPIC Global Solutions is looking forward to bringing gambling harm awareness to the players, staff and supporters at all Scottish Professional Football League (SPFL) clubs from the start of the 2024/25 season.

The global experts in mitigating against gambling-related harm will be extending their considerable sporting reach by working across all four divisions of Scotland’s professional soccer structure, delivering a series of predominantly face-to-face sessions that will allow audiences to learn from the lived experience of those who have faced problem gambling first hand.

The arrangement comes as part of the new five-year deal which sees William Hill become the title sponsor and official betting partner of the Premiership down to League 2, meaning that every club from reigning top-flight champions Celtic all the way through to recently-reprieved Stranraer in the fourth tier will get the chance to welcome EPIC’s globally-renowned team.

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Thanks to backing from the competition’s sponsor, SkyBet, EPIC has engaged with more than 12,000 players across England’s EFL over the past six seasons, as well as delivering education to clubs across leading competitions around the world in recent years, such as the MLS and Belgium’s Jupiler Pro League.

However, this considerable expansion into the Scottish game is the first of its kind to encompass the entire competition across the country, coming hot on the heels of EPIC’s recent delivery to both men’s and women’s teams at Glasgow giants Rangers, and it will also be the first formal arrangement in which supporters will be directly engaged through each club’s community trust, to further extend the message’s reach.

The company’s mix of education, training and consultancy has also benefited leading organisations in other sports, working extensively across Britain’s rugby union, horse racing and cricket landscape, as well as having arrangements with the NCAA, NFL Players Association PAF, MLB and MLSPA in the US.

John Millington, senior director at EPIC Global Solutions, said:

“We’re proud that we’ve once again been seen as the perfect partner to raise awareness around problem gambling issues and we’re grateful to William Hill and the SPFL for bringing this opportunity together. We look forward to engaging with new audiences in Scotland from next season and helping to minimize the risks that gambling can pose in a high-risk sector like elite sport.

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“The new partnership between William Hill and the SPFL follows the recommendations we shared when we released our Gambling Harm Review in Sport white paper in February 2023.

“In that report, guided by experts from the world of elite sport and the gambling ecosystem, we advised that in order to safeguard against the potential for sports betting harm, any new sponsorship agreement between gambling operators and sports organizations should have measures built in, such as education or awareness campaigns, to try and prevent problem gambling. This new arrangement does exactly that, for the benefit of players, staff and supporters in Scottish football, who can all learn from our distinct lived experience-based approach and create an open culture within clubs to talk about the issue.”