I used to be a bookies’ boy — but they ruin lives

THIS may not be a wise confession to make in a newspaper that’s done so much to expose the outrageous way big betting firms have been behaving, but here goes: I was once a bookies’ runner.

In my defence, it was a very long time ago. I was, I think, eight or nine years old and it would be a decade before gambling was legalised in this country. So every poor neighbourhood like mine in Cardiff had its own dodgy character on the street corner.

We kids would collect the bets for tomorrow’s horse race from our neighbours and deliver them to the bookie. I can’t remember ever being paid. In those days, if an adult told you to do something, you did it. And I suppose there was the thrill of knowing you were doing something a bit naughty — even if we weren’t quite sure why.

It’s 60 years since the Betting and Gaming Act made the street-corner bookie redundant and paved the way for an industry that has wrought untold misery. It’s 15 years since Tony Blair’s disgraceful Gambling Act effectively wrote the industry a blank cheque.

Is there anything more sickening than hearing a spokesman for one of the gambling giants protesting that they are working hard to protect ‘vulnerable’ gamblers when the truth is that their companies are making billions from bleeding them dry?

Addicts are being created and exploited. Families and lives are being destroyed. Mental health services are struggling to cope.

The street-corner bookies of my childhood were breaking the law, but they were saints compared with the titans of the gambling industry today. It’s time the betting barons were sent packing.