Gambling is a cancer wrecking many lives

Sir — I am a finance director of a medium-sized company and in the last six months alone we have had to deal with two instances of employees being driven close to the edge due to their gambling addiction. Unfortunately, this is only the tip of the iceberg.

I was a gambler myself (not a problem gambler but a relatively heavy gambler at times) and I like to think that I understand the attraction of gambling to so many people. I eventually packed it in when I saw how my wife and kids had to put up with my bad moods whenever a bet didn’t “come in”.

Looking at the availability of betting opportunities that exist for anybody who has an iPhone (ie, everybody over the age of 13) and the fact that gambling has been completely normalised makes me worry for all the young males who are being bombarded with special offers morning, noon and night by online bookmakers. Even the lottery is now available at the touch of a button.

If you look at bookmakers’ sites now they are more like fun gaming sites aimed at attracting vulnerable young teens into the world of gambling. The message seems to be that if you are not betting on sporting events online you are missing the craic and you are probably a bit of a square.

One simple step that could be taken is for the BAI to ban those segments on radio shows given over to the “charity bet”. In this segment a bookmaker will get a five-minute slot discussing all the great betting opportunities available to the listeners over the weekend and in return he gives a free bet to a named charity — funnily enough, a gambling charity has never been the recipient of one of these “free bets”. I wonder do the radio stations also get paid for these little bits of harmless fun?

I don’t blame the bookmaking companies as they will do whatever it takes to maximise profits for their shareholders. It is up to us as a society to ensure that proper regulations are in place that protect the vulnerable in our society from these bookmaking companies with their massive marketing budgets.

Like a lot of people, I have a very strong feeling that the Government is not on top of this issue and does not fully understand the dangers that exist in relation to online gambling.

The appointment of an independent gambling tsar or a gambling ombudsman to oversee the industry would, in my opinion, be a good first step in getting to grips with this cancer that is causing so much harm to so many people, many of whom are young and vulnerable.

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