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.
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