Gambling in the UK is a huge industry, estimated to be worth £14.7bn in 2022. Television and gambling are also intrinsically linked. We see a lot of television ads for gambling in the UK, and there are also plenty of celebrities known to enjoy playing at casinos. Some of the TV stars from the UK have even forged professional careers playing poker and other casino games.
Online Casinos and Their Ambassadors
The rise of online casinos has led to a lot of competition in the market, and the number of casino brands in the UK is also at an all-time high. We see these brands trying to increase their awareness and celebrity partners and large events are one of the ways that they can do so. The technology behind casino brands has also changed and helped to grow the popularity of online casinos in the UK. The shift to live streaming and therefore live games has been a big industry trend.
Big brands are largely pushing their live casino games, showing customers how they can connect to a dealer in real time and play table games as if they are sitting in a casino for real. Online casino ambassadors and stars of gambling adverts in the UK include the likes of Paddy McGuinness and Ray Winstone. Winstone has been in UK television adverts for live casinos as well as in-play gambling. Brands are taking advantage of their popularity to try to encourage people to try their live games. With more need than ever to stand out from the competition, companies use celebrities to educate fans about their live casino games and secure online gambling platform. Endorsements from celebrities are a way to build both awareness and trust.
Helen Chamberlain
Helen Chamberlain is a great example of a British TV star with a history in gambling, specifically in poker and horse racing. In her TV career, she was discovered while working as an entertainer on a holiday resort before working for Nickelodeon and eventually being picked up to work on a range of other shows.
Chamberlain is known to a generation of sports fans as a presenter on Soccer AM, but she has had a successful poker career. In the 2005 Poker Million tournament, she finished in one of the prize positions, winning $400,000. Chamberlain even presented shows on the Sky Poker channel that launched in the UK in the 2000s.
She also used her winnings to buy a racehorse called Birkspiel who was trained by successful trainer Simon Dow. Birkspiel did win some races and prize money but wasn’t hugely successful, he retired in 2008.
Derren Brown
Derren Brown is, first and foremost, an entertainer. He has made TV shows that focus on casinos and casino gambling with a focus on beating the casino. How much of what is real, we’ll never know for sure.
One thing is clear, though, Brown has a fascination with Casinos. He told a BBC interviewer that he often gets kicked out of casinos, using his powers of suggestion and card counting to try to gain an advantage over the house.
In 2009, Derren Brown made a show called How to Take Down a Casino in which he claimed that he could predict the outcome of a game of roulette. He got a contestant to bet £5000 on the outcome, but they actually lost the bet. Brown said sorry to his contestant and promised to give him back the money.
The idea was that Brown would be able to predict where the ball was going to land on the roulette wheel using cameras to predict its trajectory. On this occasion, it didn’t work, but the show features some interesting information about casino gambling and the game of roulette specifically.
Victoria Coren-Mitchell
No list of TV stars in the UK with ties to the gambling industry is complete without Victoria Coren-Mitchell.
Coren-Mitchell is an incredibly successful poker player. Her live tournament winnings exceed £1.8 million, and in 2006 she won a massive £500,000 prize while playing an event on the European Poker Tour in London.
In terms of her TV stardom, Victoria Coren-Mitchell has hosted the general knowledge show Only Connect since 2008. Known as one of the toughest shows out there, it has a cult following of fans and has projected her to stardom. She has also appeared on comedy panel shows such as Taskmaster and Would I Lie to You?
Conclusion
Gambling is a big part of UK culture, and there are plenty of gambling shows on in the UK, as well as TV stars known to enjoy visits to casinos or playing at live casinos online. This list shows a few of the most prominent names to play casino games including poker and roulette, as well as some of the stars who have signed deals to endorse casino brands.