AIBU - gambling is truly nasty and pernicious...

M0nica

We have opened Pandora's box, we have got to work out what to do next

Somebody decided that the internet should have no holds barred and that everything there is to know and partake of should be available to be known and partaken of by everyone.

Maybe we are not sufficiently developed for this great achievement because the technology has evolved faster than our collective social maturity?

HildaW

I loathe the idea of gambling....the advertising of it that normalises it as an innocent fun pastime is beyond me. Its not a hobby or something to do for fun. Buying a raffle ticket at a fundraising event, physically going to play Bingo with a group of friend, a girly day out at the races are different - they are social occasions to be enjoyed. But sitting home alone on the laptop - being made to believe you are somehow part of a community having fun, is a dangerous slippery slope that is fraught with potential dangers.

I am well aware of the dangers of gambling, but I think we need to see it in proportion. For the majority of people in this country, if they gamble at all, it is the odd flutter on the results of the Grand National or a General Election.

DD likes the odd flutter on a sport she follows and things like elections. Something she has been doing for the last 15 -20. years without any desire to take it any further. Her bets are usually £10 and that applies to most of those gambling.

I think the curse for gamblers is online gambling. But that is the case with so many of current problems, whether it is the rise on child sexual abuse through men being able to search for nastier and nastier pornography online , men, whose fathers, never got beyond an occasional viewing a copy of Play boy magazine or boys in their bedrooms being caught up into terrorism or violent misogyny, who in pre-internet days, would have been quite happy with horror magazines and the odd view of 'health and Efficiency'

We have opened Pandora's box, we have got to work out what to do next

This takes me back!
Very old thread from 2015 started by somebody who is no longer a member.

I’m fully aware of the dangers of gambling but feel it is better out the open rather than «nudge, nudge, wink, wink» of illegal off-course betting like it was in the old days.

And where do you draw the line ?- the Lottery? Bingo? Scratch cards? Raffle tickets? A «flutter» on the Derby?

Before off course gambling was legal I used to take my dads Saturday bet to the illegal bookies up the road; Laura’s. It was 3x4 penny doubles and a six penny treble. Never more, never less. The local policeman used to look the other way…

Anne58

My bets consist of 10p each way, so each bet costs me 20p. I only do the horse racing, and thoroughly enjoy studying form or following certain horses. Sometimes my 20p stake will return around £2 or so, sometimes nothing.

My mother was exactly like that. The pleasure was in - as she called it - studying the form.

This was in the late 50s, early 60s - no internet then so she'd physically bet with her pennies, and pennies were all she could afford as she was a nurse at the time... a time when nurses were paid a pittance, and she was divorced from my father who was a tad random with his maintenance payments.

I remember so vividly her sitting with the folded newspaper at the appropriate page, one leg crossed over the other, elegantly drawing on a Sobranie Cocktail cigarette (the only time she ever smoked) and educating me about strange sounding names of horses, and their 'form'. She never upped her stake...

Looking back, I don't begrudge her these weekly bets - I was well-fed and clothed in a warm flat. Her pleasure was entirely in the 'academic' study of form which I do think she understood to a degree.

A family friend once suggested she 'do the pools'... "you're a gambling lady" he said. "I most certainly am not" she indignantly responded

So many gambling opportunities advertised on tv offering 'free stakes' and free money to 'Open your account' Desperate people get sucked in.

My late father was a compulsive gambler. When my grandmother went into a nursing home he gambled away her entire fortune, in 3 years. Spent £70k in the early 70s. All his wages went to the bookies on horses or dogs, also football pools. I went in a pub with him when I was an adult and was going to have a go on the slot machine. He told me to wait until someone else played it. Then he said play now and it will pay out. It did. He told me he memorised the sequence of the reels and could tell what was coming next but was barred from playing the machine as he could empty it and had done several times. This was before random computerised machines. He had a brilliant brain and a very retentive memory. Really a waste as he never had a well paying job and stole from people and jobs to fund his addiction.

Another thread resurrection from the dead! Gambling has always been with us and always will be. Probably a lot easier these days,sadly.

awesome

Maremia

I'd love to know what is the 'proper' way to do gambling.

Premium bonds and perhaps a lottery ticket occasionally because it helps good causes!
A charity raffle? You buy a ticket (or ten) but might not win a prize.

ArthurAskey

Saw a man clearly on his uppers and the worse for drink spend £10 on scratch cards the other day. We hear a lot about people living in poverty but when benefits are squandered on betting and boozing it makes my blood boil.

How did you know he was on benefits?
Did you ask him?

He could have been reasonably well off but just scruffy.

I'd love to know what is the 'proper' way to do gambling.

As Anne has said, you can gamble without doing great damage, and most certainly the phrase "More bookies in the High Streets of the UK than shops now" is utter tosh.

Sure, there are some problem gamblers, but the numbers are DWARFED by the number of problem eaters, and problem drinkers! The eaters and drinkers also tend to kill themselves, having on the way cost the NHS huge sums trying to fix THOSE particular addictions (which the taxes from gambling are helping to pay for!). Oh, and drunk drivers tend to kill people, people who've overdosed playing roulette (etc) largely don't? Let's ban excess food and drink, have Big Brother checking your Tesco till rolls?!

TV adverts? Yes, look closely, and you will see them festooned with signs about 'GamCare', 'BetResponsibly' (etc etc).

Horse-racing is one of the largest employers in the country, apparently, when you add in all the ancillary business interests (hospitality, transport, etc), and trying to cripple it would be thoroughly counter-productive. And as some have said, it can be a nice day out (maybe don't go on a wet day like we've had so much of lately?!).

The REAL problem apparently lies with online games, roulette, poker, etc, which the campaign to not drastically increase taxes on horseracing tried to focus on. Those sites it seems, according to the article I read, are based outside of the UK, in low-tax locations (Gib, Malta, etc) so hard to enforce UK laws on them. If you have bright ideas about that, send to your MP?

Ban gambling because it's a terrible thing? Well, the numbers suggest it's hugely popular. Lots of countries abroad have horse-racing, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and plenty more, massive amounts in the States, Oz, Hong Kong, SA, and these days in S America too. Those countries tend to have a 'Tote' Based system, with the profits going to racing, or perhaps good causes.

I read years ago that THIS country messed up when betting shops appeared, the MacMillan Govt (Tories!) allowed itself to be 'persuaded' (the polite term?!) to let them be run by commercial interests, and so Ladbrokes, Corals, etc built vast business empires from the profits. We could only guess if any recently ex-politicos found themselves as directors of such firms?!

My dear late mil was exactly like Anne58, she made a real hobby of studying form, had her favourite trainers and jockeys, gambled nearly every day, just 20, 30 max 50p a day and thoroughly enjoyed it! She was totally non addictive, although she could have afforded to gamble much higher stakes, she never did!

Advertising should be banned on gambling as is smoking in all places. Stop the idiocies of the “take a rest”ones also similar line to “Air on a G string “ having the same affect on smokers.
If the USA can control it online as a previous poster reported, why can’t the UK?

They shouldn't be allowed to advertise on TV or have their banners/sponsorship of footie shown on TV

Saw a man clearly on his uppers and the worse for drink spend £10 on scratch cards the other day. We hear a lot about people living in poverty but when benefits are squandered on betting and boozing it makes my blood boil.

vegasmags

I think that the growth of online gambling has exacerbated addiction. It can be carried out in private, unknown to family and friends. I am astonished by the number of TV adverts promoting this activity, and wonder if they shouldn't be more strongly regulated.

The situation in the USA is very complicated, because different states take differing views, but it is much harder to gamble online because of credit card regulations which are absent here.

This post ticks all the boxes on the perils of gambling. Never really had had a problem with the usual suspect High Street bookies back in the day.

When besides the daily gamblers people could have the odd flutter or a bet on a big horse race like the Gand National. I know they has changed a lot

But the introduction of Online gambling has really changed to get whole nature of gambling. And l think online gambling should be banned.

But really don't know how this could be achieved.

Gambling Addiction like any addiction is truly awful. And can really destroy individuals and their families.

Unfortunately it brings a lot of money into the economy. There is nothing wrong with gambling if done in a proper way.

If someone doesn’t have much money they will beg, steal, or borrow the money they need to feed their addiction. If it means pawning their possessions or someone else’s, it doesn’t matter. People have lost their homes, their marriages, and become estranged from family who loaned the addict money but never got it back. Eventually they end up alone without any support system having run out of options for getting the money they need legally.
The saddest thing is that addicts who try to kick the habit are relentlessly bombed on their phones with adverts from gambling companies. One young man had nearly kicked his habit for good but succumbed to the constant ads and committed suicide.
Companies that do this bombing should be held to account. Is criminal.

One of my foodbank clients is addicted. When money comes into his account, he spends it immediately on gambling. Within a day or two, his money is gone, he has no food in the house, and no way of buying credit for his electricity.
He is in his late fifties, I would guess .
I have no idea how this could be stopped.

As far as gambling goes the saddest thing I witnessed was a lady who once upon a time was very wealthy.
At the time I was a roulette and black Jack dealer.
It was a quiet afternoon session so there was only her and I on the table. She had done all her money, the manager refused her credit.
Then she spent an amount of time scrambling in her very expensive handbag looking for enough change to buy one more chip.
It was so sad to see. I can still see her in my minds eye. My brain was saying, stop, please stop.

It would be good if online gambling was stopped but it's not going to happen because too much taxation would be lost, it's just another revenue earner.

MiniMouse

It's true that betting shops and gambling have been around for donkey's years, but it's the advertising on TV that's glamourising it, plus the 24 hour accessibility that worries me.

I think it was early 60s that bookies were allowed on the high street. Up until then horse race betting was done at the course.

I remember my parents being quite shocked when a betting shop came to our village.

Fallingstar

I think gambling is an important enough issue for us to discuss again regardless of how old the thread is.

Yes.