IG Group is buying into betting's airtime — and it is not buying as a bookmaker

Quiet weekend market: UK trade is dark until Monday, so this covers the 72 hours to Saturday morning — four days out from the Budget. The biggest UK story of those three days is a FTSE 100 financial firm buying its way into betting’s airtime, and it is not arriving as a bookmaker.

Top five

• IG Group is launching UK prediction markets and putting a campaign on Sky Sports next month, having applied for a Gambling Commission licence the week before (SBC News, 22 October).
• evoke used Friday’s Q3 results to warn the Chancellor off further rises: revenue £406m, down 7% year on year, and 270 fewer William Hill shops than a year ago (SBC News, 23 October).
• Three people were sentenced on Friday over bets on the 2024 General Election date — the Gambling Commission’s first prosecution of its kind (Gambling Commission, 23 October).
• McCann Manchester has lost Aldi’s creative account after more than two decades, with Omnicom out of the global review (Prolific North, 23 October).
• BetGoodwin is reported to be weighing an £80m AIM float — a UK bookmaker going the other way in a year of delistings (SBC News, 21 October, citing Sky News).

IG Group is buying into betting’s airtime — and it is not buying as a bookmaker

At a Capital Markets Event on Wednesday, IG Group confirmed it will launch a UK prediction markets product as early as Q4 2026 through its IG Consumer arm, broadening into politics, entertainment and sport by early 2027. It applied for a Gambling Commission licence the week before, having bought US predictions and daily fantasy operator Underdog for $1.1bn — a US-market figure — in July. The detail that matters to a buyer sits lower in the SBC News report: a campaign built on a “trade better” line hits UK screens next month, on channels including Sky Sports. Michael Healy, chief executive of IG Consumer, told investors the UK is “different” because “regulation is split between two regulators”, but that the firm has “found a route to market with a regulated product”.

Analysis. Two consequences. Price first: a brand with FTSE 100 backing and no existing UK share, buying sport-adjacent TV, will firm up exactly the slots a bingo or casino advertiser wants, in the month that advertiser is already braced for the Budget. Lock November and December now. Then the asymmetry. IG expects to sit under both the FCA and the Gambling Commission, and it reaches a far younger audience than it serves today — over 60% of Underdog’s active users are under 30, against an IG average customer age of 42. If the creative behaves like financial-services advertising while the product is licensed as gambling, that is an advantage on tone, targeting and affiliate reach no licensed operator can copy. SBC News noted on Friday that UK betting exchange gross gambling yield, the nearest domestic analogue, has nearly halved in a decade. Watch what the first executions are permitted to say.

Market, audiences and spend

The Budget is on Wednesday 28 October — John Healey’s first as Chancellor, with an OBR forecast alongside (Parliament). SBC News reported on 21 October that Machine Games Duty is expected to be capped at 25% rather than the 40% ninety Labour MPs demanded. That is a report, not a decision, and it concerns MGD alone: nothing in it addresses Remote Gaming Duty, at 40% since April, or General Betting Duty, rising from 15% to 25% in April 2027. Treat online as unaddressed, not spared.

evoke’s Friday numbers are the clearest read yet on what the earlier rises have cost: revenue of £406m, down 7% year on year or 2% like-for-like at constant currency, with one to two percentage points attributed to customer-friendly early-season football results. Chief executive Per Widerström said closing 270 shops “shows the real impact on jobs and livelihoods from higher industry taxation” and urged the government “to carefully consider any further increases”.

Clients on the move

• Aldi and McCann Manchester. Prolific North reported on Friday that the agency will no longer handle Aldi’s creative, after holding it since 2005 and building Kevin the Carrot. The global review is down to two groups and Omnicom is not one of them; Aldi says the tender is ongoing with no final appointments made. The £60m UK media account has sat with Publicis’ Starcom since 2022.
• Nando’s has shortlisted four agencies in a UK media review, with Aperto Partnership running it. Lavazza appointed a global media agency and Deliveroo a digital creative agency, both reported by Campaign on 21 October. Campaign is paywalled, so the named agencies are not confirmed here.

People

• News UK made a series of senior commercial appointments and Experience hired Ben Burman as managing director, both reported by Campaign on 21 October; the News UK names sit behind the paywall.
• Mother has added eight people (More About Advertising, Friday) — against the season.

Online and connected TV

The only CTV piece of substance in the window is a supply-path argument in VideoWeek on 22 October by Anastasia Skliarenko of Axis — a supplier byline carrying no data and naming no market, so weigh it accordingly. The argument is still actionable: one CTV source reaching a buyer by three routes duplicates bid requests, adds latency and can leave a buyer bidding against itself, and dashboard metrics do not show the path. For a UK operator running CTV through several SSPs into the Budget period, a path audit is a saving available this week.

Gambling advertising

Three people were sentenced at Southwark Crown Court on Friday for cheating under section 42 of the Gambling Act 2005, over bets on the date of the 2024 General Election. Anthony Lee, then Conservative Director of Campaigning, received 10 months and two weeks; Laura Lee four months and two weeks; Amy Hind six months. All had pleaded guilty, all sentences were suspended for 12 months, and all three are barred from online gambling apps for a year. Katharine Diamond, General Counsel at the Gambling Commission, called it “a significant case and a first of its kind for the Commission”; ten others face trial in 2027 and 2028 (Gambling Commission).

The buyer read is the timing, not the sentences: a first-of-its-kind integrity prosecution involving political betting and named party officials lands four days before a Budget in which gambling taxation is already a live political fight. Expect it quoted back at the category all week.

Elsewhere, the ASA published three formal rulings on 21 October — Bingchuan Network, Cara Capsules and Celeb Innovations — none involving gambling, betting or prize promotions, so nothing new for bonus-led advertisers to read across.

Media buying view

• Lock November and December sport-adjacent TV before IG’s campaign breaks. One new advertiser will not move the whole market, but it will harden the slots gambling brands compete hardest for. Sign this week, not after the first airing.
• Audit your CTV supply paths for duplicate routes to the same inventory. Ask each SSP which path the impression took, drop the redundant ones, keep the most direct. A working-media saving you can take before the Budget with no plan change.
• Clear political and novelty betting references from creative and affiliate rotation until after 28 October. Friday’s sentencing hands the category’s critics a fresh, named example in Budget week; an ad inviting a bet on a political outcome is the one that gets screenshotted.