What Is the Flutter-Funded League of Ireland Gambling Awareness Programme?
The Flutter-funded League of Ireland gambling awareness programme is a three-year peer-led education initiative delivered by EPIC Risk Management in partnership with the FAI and PFAI, which by April 2026 had reached more than 1,250 participants — covering all 32 senior League of Ireland teams plus FAI staff and match officials — within three months of rollout.
The Flutter-funded League of Ireland gambling awareness programme is a three-year peer-led education initiative delivered by EPIC Risk Management in partnership with the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) and the Professional Footballers' Association of Ireland (PFAI). By April 2026, three months into rollout, the programme had reached more than 1,250 participants — including every senior team across the 32-club League of Ireland, plus FAI staff and match officials.
For a B2C operator, funding sports-adjacent harm-prevention work is no longer optional optics; for a B2B intelligence layer, the programme is a useful case study in how operator-funded prevention is being structured in 2026.
What the Programme Actually Does
The initiative is delivered by EPIC Risk Management, a UK-based harm-prevention consultancy that uses lived-experience educators — people who have personally experienced gambling harm — to run sessions with at-risk populations. Footballers are one of EPIC's primary cohorts globally, because professional and semi-professional players show disproportionately high rates of gambling participation and harm.
The Ireland programme covers:
- All 32 League of Ireland senior teams — Premier Division and First Division, men's and women's where applicable.
- FAI staff — coaches, administrators, and integrity officers.
- Match officials — referees and assistant referees, who face specific integrity risks.
- Peer-led delivery — sessions are led by former players or others with lived experience, not generic compliance trainers.
Reported outcomes from the FAI/PFAI release: 94% of senior players are now aware of FAI and UEFA integrity regulations after completing the programme — a meaningful baseline for an audience that is regulator-target #1 in football integrity policy.
Why Flutter Funded It
Flutter (parent of Paddy Power, Sky Bet, Betfair, FanDuel, and others) operates one of Ireland's largest licensed sportsbooks. The funding sits within Flutter's "Play Well" responsible-gambling strategy, which committed to invest in independent harm-prevention work in markets where Flutter has significant presence.
There are three commercial logics that align with the social one:
- Regulatory positioning. Ireland's new Gambling Regulation Act and Authority (GRAI) raised the bar on operator-funded harm prevention. Demonstrable, audited programmes carry weight in licensing reviews.
- Sports integrity protection. Insider information from players, staff, and officials is the highest-risk vector for match-fixing and account-level integrity issues. Educated participants are less likely to leak data or be exploited.
- Sponsorship licence-to-operate. UK and Irish public debate has centred on football-gambling sponsorship. Operator-funded education is a partial counterweight to the case for outright ad bans.
How "Peer-Led" Differs from Standard RG Training
Most operator responsible-gambling content is module-based, online, and compliance-driven. It satisfies regulators but rarely changes behaviour at the cohort level.
EPIC's peer-led model is structurally different:
- Sessions are in-person and small-group.
- Educators speak from personal experience, not script.
- Content is tailored to the cohort — football players hear from former football players who lost careers and money.
- Outcomes are measurable: pre/post awareness, intent-to-help-a-teammate, and follow-up engagement metrics.
For operators evaluating whether to fund similar programmes, the EPIC/Ireland model is one of the most operationally mature templates available in 2026.
What This Means for Operators and Suppliers
| Stakeholder | Implication |
|---|---|
| Tier-1 operators | Independent, cohort-targeted programmes are becoming the standard for "credible" RG investment — more than self-published reports |
| Mid-market operators | Sponsorship of established programmes is faster and cheaper than building one in-house |
| B2B suppliers | Intelligence-layer vendors are being asked to support RG outcome measurement, not just risk scoring |
| Regulators | Outcome data (awareness lift, intervention rates) is increasingly expected in operator submissions |
What to Watch in Phases 2 and 3
The Ireland programme is structured over three years. Useful signals to track:
- Whether outcome data (problem-gambling prevalence among participants) is published independently
- Extension to grassroots and youth teams, where prevention is most effective
- Whether other Flutter markets (UK, Italy, US) replicate the peer-led structure
- Whether GRAI references the programme in its first regulatory guidance
For B2B providers, the takeaway is that "responsible gambling" is moving from a compliance feature to an outcome metric — and the operators investing in measurable prevention now will be the ones quoted in regulator briefings later.
Adkuu helps operators turn responsible-gambling signal into product action — surfacing at-risk patterns to RG teams in real time, while the human and educational interventions like EPIC's programme handle the harder, person-to-person work that software alone can't do.
Last verified: April 2026