Death threats against female tennis players are negligible collateral damage for the betting industry

A few days ago, British tennis player Katie Boulter made public the messages she receives on social media. The death threats , the hate after losses or victories that weren't explicit enough. Often, the senders are men disappointed with life who have just lost what's left of their savings on a bet. They then write to the protagonists on Instagram whatever words come to mind: "Losser, please die of cancer," things like that.

The phenomenon is not new; athletes have been pointing it out for many years. When it comes to female athletes, the inhibition threshold seems to be particularly low— misogyny often runs rampant.

The mechanism is always the same: a brief outcry of outrage, warm words of encouragement, and then a collective shrug. Shortly after US President Donald Trump came to power, the meta-corporation publicly signaled that it couldn't care less about "hate speech." This is even more true for betting providers . Bet365, one of the market leaders, generated profits of more than 4 billion Swiss francs in 2024. Its CEO, the British Denise Coates, has since amassed a fortune of more than 10 billion.

Those suffering in the industry are athletes like Boulter, who says she's increasingly worried about her safety because it's impossible to gauge how serious these people are. And those poor souls who lost their last pennies on a handicap bet on fourth-tier tournaments in Vietnam. In England alone, an average of 100 million pounds is wagered on tennis matches every day. The number of suicides involving gambling addiction ranges between 117 and 496 per year.

There's little improvement in sight – sports betting has been legalized in numerous countries in recent years and has become more accessible, including in Switzerland. Foreign providers are technically not allowed to operate here; their websites are blocked. But they ignore the legal prohibitions, which can be circumvented with a click of the mouse. The pattern and reflex are well-known and by no means limited to the betting industry: financial interests push moral questions into the background.

Some female athletes have long taken a simple yet radical step because they no longer want to be exposed to these threats: They are deleting their social media profiles. England women's soccer players announced to CNN that they will suspend their accounts for the duration of the European Championship in Switzerland, which begins on July 2. Chelsea striker Alessia Russo said she has also been insulted and threatened because someone lost a computer game and her virtual character scored the winning goal.

Crazy what goes on in some people's heads.

An article from the « NZZ am Sonntag »