I need help to beat my fixed odds betting terminals addiction - Tony Franklin

15^th September 2017

I’ve struggled my whole life with gambling addiction since the age of 10 / 11.

Today I’ve made my formal application to the UK’s only NHS specialist gambling clinic in London, the National Problem Gambling Clinic for help and I hope it will come quickly.

I’m addicted to Fixed Odds Betting Terminals and had a prolific relapse over a week which ended on the 12^th September with me losing £2,740 in less than hour.

I’ve previously beaten an internet gambling addiction and haven’t gambled online for over 10 years. I was able to effectively self-exclude and download software to prevent me accessing online gambling sites.

Although I’ve tried to self-exclude from the bookmakers there is NO EFFECTIVE solution to do so and they have continued to allow me to access their shops and lose substantial monies even though they know my ‘tragic case’.

I’ve tried to use all the self-help tools, and knowledge that I’ve gained over the years to beat my addiction but ultimately the availability and ease of access to such ruinous high speed, high stake machines has had the better of me. I am completely paralysed and broken. Totally destroyed by these machines.

I have to accept that I need the professional help and expertise of Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones clinic and I really hope that I will be able to overcome this addiction which has totally consumed me. I am not a nice person to be around and I have hurt so many people along the way.

I love my daughter, Sophie, my son Samko my son Jacob, my grandson Charlie and all of my family and friends who have done their best to help me. I need to help myself.

I will continue to talk about my addiction openly and use my story as best I can to help others and to raise awareness of this horrible addiction.

Thank you.

Tony Franklin (GamblingHurts)

Plant life in the jungle - the electronic gambling machines cradle to grave schema and Credit Reference Agency Affordability Checks

Pressure is mounting on the whole electronic gambling machine industry ahead of the Government's long awaited review due October into Fixed Odds Betting Terminals (FOBTs) and reducing the maximum stake to £2.

The simple fact though is the whole gambling industry has long ignored the harm caused by its addictive by design electronic gambling machine products including FOBTs, online roulette, and casino slots.

It has preferred to repeat over and over its narrative that responsible gambling is fun, and that it signposts people to help in the small number of cases where appropriate.

The problem now facing the industry is that it has become almost impossible to maintain this narrative in the face of a number of high profile failures to keep harm and crime out of gambling and increasing evidence from the Gambling Commission that electronic gambling machines make huge and disproportionate profit from a very small number of customers with gambling addiction.

The solution is actually very simple:

1) Implement the requirement that regardless of sector customers have to open an account to play any electronic gambling machine product.
2) Implement the requirement that as part of the account opening process ID and affordability checks are done via the Credit Reference Agencies and that a responsible gambling limit is set.
3) Implement the requirement for player tracking software with alerts for risky play activity including chasing losses.

With the current media interest relaying information to its audience daily about gambling harm the industry is very sensitive to any proposals for robust and effective solutions to stop gambling harm that would seriously impact its profits in the process.

This is when you can spot the industry plant life frantically trying to justify the continuation of half baked solutions that allow the misery money to keep flowing.

It must not be allowed to happen.

Gambling Industry Turf Wars, Supermarkets & Pubs

There is a desperate money grab going on right now in the gambling industry. It’s a turf war to get the money whilst they can.

The gambling industry has invested heavily in promoting their dangerous electronic gambling machines and other addictive products such as high speed, high stake roulette available 24 / 7 in the online casinos and on the bookmaker FOBT machines, and the Lottery scratch cards innocuously served up in the supermarkets.

These products are addiction by design. They are designed to hook people in by making every losing play a near miss that has an effect on the brain to release a flood of dopamine that creates a sensation more exciting than even the winning itself. This keeps people locked in play far beyond their better judgement. Always the next spin will be the one that pays out big.

They are using a well proven methodology of hijacking emotional traits in the brain to groom vulnerable people and children for gambling related harm. They are an industry where the bulk of their profit comes from the destruction and misery of their client base. 

Of course it is all lies, you cannot win gambling otherwise the industry simply wouldn’t exist. The reality is that the gambling industry always needs new customers, eventually every addict is depleted of resources or their ability to obtain money is stopped by an event such as going to prison, inability to borrow more, loss of their job, suicide, or if they are one of the lucky few they realise eventually they need to stop and seek help to do so.

Already the public perception of gambling is changing as more and more people are being harmed and the ripple effects of that misery and destruction wreaks havoc in families and communities across the UK.

Gambling commission data from their 2016/17 annual report shows that 69% of people now believe that gambling is dangerous to family life and that 55% of people now believe that gambling should be discouraged. (Up from 36% in 2010)

At the same time gambling couldn’t be more prevalent or available and the Government and other companies are complicit in promoting the harm to maximise profits or taxes even when the long term economics of such a strategy are flawed.

What we are seeing is a desperate money grab that is playing out in new ways. Everyone seems to want a piece of the action, like a plague of vultures tearing open its still alive and screeching prey.

The gambling industry has bought into food companies and is promoting products such as Kellogg’s Krave Roulette, Doritos Roulette crisps and Haribo roulette sweets. The supermarkets are stocking the product. It’s aimed at further normalising gambling and targeting the curiosity of a younger audience to get their first pound that will hook them into play and empty their pockets. Why would the supermarkets want to put such products on the kid’s breakfast table?

At the same time two of the biggest gambling industry lobby groups (the ABB, representing the bookmaker industry and BACTA representing the amusement arcade, and pub machine industry) have locked horns (like vultures) over where the spend should go.

BACTA have funded the Parliamentary APPG investigation into the fixed odds betting terminals and have called strongly for a reduction in machine stakes from £100 a spin to £2 a spin to reduce the harm being caused by high speed high stake roulette and slot machine games.

At the same time BACTA and others including Gamestec, JD Wetherspoons, Hungry Horse, have been silently introducing roulette and other FOBT type content into the pub market to take back some of that spend from the bookmakers. Not only are the machines capable of extracting thousands an hour in spend from an addict but they are served up in an environment where alcohol is served and children are present. 

The turf war opening up to fight for that pound of spend is every bit as despicable as every part of the gambling industry. It must be stopped.

Electronic Gambling machines – All-out war on 4 million people in the UK

Nearly 4 million people in the UK identify as gambling addicts or at-risk gamblers

(Source: Gambling Commission – gambling participation in 2016)

 

The narrative from the gambling industry and others that says it’s all the individuals fault, that it is simple bad choice to spend more than you can afford is simplistic, dangerous, and worrying.

 

If we have 4 million people in the UK wandering around our streets not in control of their actions then we had better all go home and put the shutters down.

 

It is nonsense talk.

 

I want to separate ‘treatment’ from the rest of this discussion because in that context it is important for the individual to take responsibility to stop gambling because frankly if they don’t no-one else will.

 

In the context of the gambling industry it is all out war on 4 million people in this country.

 

They have meticulously, purposely designed a cradle to grave system to deprive 4 million people of their time, money, and dignity for profit.

 

It is an absolute scandal.

 

The machines are omnipresent, you cannot escape them.

 

They are online and offline, in the bookmakers, on your phone, in amusement arcades, on your notebook, in the bowling alley, on your tablet, in the bingo halls, in the casinos, in the fish & chip shop, in your head, all day, every day, in work or out of work, at home or out of home.

 

The narrative is that they are ‘FUN’, a harmless, benign, leisure pursuit that creates jobs and pays its taxes. The people behind the operators have used their wealth to infiltrate the government, regulator, banking, to create the narrative and write gambling policy and regulation.

 

Who else could construct ‘responsible gambling’ as a credible policy statement? It’s about as responsible as taking all of your weekly food money, chucking it into a wishing well and asking for your children to be fed!

 

Every day up to 4 million people will like zombies caught up in some non-stop game craze seek out their next fix, be it in the online casino or on the fixed odds betting terminals in shops out of sight in the high street.

 

It stinks. This is dirty money that is stolen from the 4 million people who least can afford to spend it. At the same time these people are immersed into a fantasy land that can take years to escape from; years of time lost. Along the way of course many people are hurt from the lying and cheating, stealing and plundering to find the money for the next fix. And the emotional toil is immense too; families despair, and break-up, unable to cope with the consequences of an addict constant money problems and inability to lead a normal life.

 

The industry have designed and navigated legislation to place their product into every age category from birth to death. They advertise non-stop through media promoting the big wins, and the fun participating in this exciting world.

 

The gambling industry know that for this 4 million group they just need to get as many of them in to the fast paced world of high speed play, and participation that will keep them locked into play until they are broken.

 

It’s been designed that way. It’s all-out war on 4 million people.

CALL TO ACTION TO challenger banks to offer a card product with block for gambling transactions.

 UPDATE: 15th June 2017.

Please respond to this survey www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/9SYBKT7  to provide your views on a bank account with a card blocked to gambling transactions and with a £30 daily cash withdrawal limit.

When considering the price point consider how much the card could save you from gambling relapses.

The product is primarily aimed at gambling addicts and those at risk of but remember as a husband / wife you may have concerns about your partner and this product could be good for family finances as a preventative tool.

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Original Post:

Twelve years on from the Gambling Act 2005 and there is still no effective method of self-exclusion from online gambling or using your debit / credit card to fund gambling transactions other than the will power to abstain.

How can this be possible when two of the three licensing objectives that underpin the gambling legislation state:

• Ensure that gambling is conducted in a fair and open way.
• Protecting children and other vulnerable people from being harmed or exploited by gambling.

Self-exclusion is in demand.

The numbers requesting self-exclusion from gambling operators have exploded to 1.1 million requests in 2016, double the numbers seen in 2014.  (Source- Sun Newspaper 13^th March 2017)

This number will likely continue to increase with the current light touch regulation of the gambling industry in the UK and the continued promotion of gambling as a ‘fun’ activity through 24/7 advertising.

The problem with operator self-exclusion is that the gambling addict goes and opens a betting account elsewhere a couple of weeks later and relapses.

Cutting the finance off is the most effective way to help someone self-exclude.

The challenger banks are already prevalent in the underbanked market and they have the technology to solve this social problem. 

There is a business case for them too and I will happily lend my expertise in this area having campaigned for well over ten years now to find a solution in this space.

Nearly 4 million people in the UK identify as gambling addicts or at-risk gamblers and need help to take control of their finances. (Source: Gambling Commission – gambling participation in 2016)

Come on Challenger banks, step up and take this on. Offer a card product that blocks gambling transactions and restricts cash withdrawals to £20 daily.