Gambling with lives

GAMBLING addiction is a modern scourge, as pernicious as alcohol and drug abuse. It destroys lives – not only those caught in its vice-like grip but their families. Now Betfair owner Flutter is accused of giving an addict £20,000 to continue gambling – even though he pleaded for a lifetime ban!

Students, meanwhile, are being paid to promote betting at universities.

This epidemic – fuelled by online gaming – cost British punters £14.5billion in 2018. But the human cost is far greater, with 430,000 addicts in the UK and one admitted to hospital every day. Depression, familybreakdown, even suicide are the products of this insidious ‘industry’.

Betting firms who grow fat on this misery promise £100million a year on helping addicts. But that’s 1 per-cent of their grotesque profits. Is this not the equivalent of a drug pusher paying for rehab?

Shamefully, the Government is complicit, raking in £443million in tax from online gaming in 2017-18. Ministers need to curb gambling advertising while stripping unscrupulous firms of their licenses. Forget the hit to the Treasury – it’s dirty money anyway.