Gambling

[Mungler]

So, I thought I’d share this. Bit random and a long one.

Eldest son’s best mate - happy go lucky sort and not an obvious deep thinker. Following Uni, he did the right thing and grabbed a job, any job, and it happened to be in a largish bookmaker’s shop on the High Street near me. 

When he started he said he’d laugh to himself at the steady stream of mugs losing their money.

It’s taken him 10 months to get the career job he wanted and he’s serving out his notice in the bookies.

10 months later he’s distraught. I underline he’s not the sort to get distraught and which indicates to me the severity of the situation. Bear in mind this is just one bookies on a very small high street (where there are other bookies) and there’s thousands of high streets and bookies across the land. There’s also the hand held bookies people now have on their phones boosted by a never ending stream of carefully crafted cynical advertising - be a proper edgey geezer and have a bet etc. 

So, back to the shop. The shop keeps records of everything and on everyone. The bottom line is that if you start winning you get banned and pretty quickly. So few people know or understand this. Also any discrepancy or issue and you don’t get paid - handwriting, missing a deadline by a nano second and so on. 

On the record keeping, they know there’s a postman who over the years has lost £50,000 gambling. There are a stream of other regulars in similar positions with worse figures behind them.

The machines are like crack. The local hairdressers and taxi drivers - as soon as they get a tenner in their hands they’re into the shop and on the machine. 

Long story short there’s a frightening number of regular problem gamblers, the shop knows all about them and keeps tabs on them (not out of concern but to make sure they don’t win big too often or get in front because they would then need to be banned) and he can see these people frittering their lives away and it troubles him, as it should all of us.

As we head to the Euros you can’t escape the deluge of cynical gambling ads - they’re everywhere and they need to be stopped or balanced with the truth ‘we’re taking the **** out of you, we’re absolutely exploiting you and you’ll never win like you think you will or like our fictional marketing suggests’.

Ive always considered myself a bit of libertarian - if you’re over 18, do what you want as long as it doesn’t mess with someone else, but I’ve changed my view on gambling and on the legalisation of cannabis. It must be my increasing years 😀

[vmaxphil]

As big a drug as drinking and narcotics 

[ditchman]

gambling and the thought of it has always frightened me to death

[Agriv8]

I am 53 years old and never been in a bookies or placed a bet. Couple of £ on the lottery now and again.

I have a mate who likes betting on the horses and does his research and yes he’s been barred from the bookies.

I cant see how you can stop it without betting bourse racing, football boxing darts snooker would all likely suffer. 
 

maybe issue a licence / id card to bet and that’s got a maximum per week!

Agriv8

[London Best]

45 minutes ago, ditchman said:

gambling and the thought of it has always frightened me to death

Me too! 
I’m 75 now and have never bet a penny on anything. In fact, to make me gamble you would have to prise the penny from my cold, dead fingers.

[Old Boggy]

31 minutes ago, Agriv8 said:

I am 53 years old and never been in a bookies or placed a bet. Couple of £ on the lottery now and again.

 

I`ve got 20 odd years on you and I too have never been in a bookies.

Sweep stake at work on the National when I was working was about my limit.

Know a couple of guys who`s lives have been ruined by gambling. Sad to see, but all too prevalent unfortunately.

OB

[ph5172]

I have never been into a physical bookies. 
I will have a flutter normally on the national and or big boxing matches using online providers which is probably worse! 
 

this will usually be on one of those new member offers where you get increased odds paid out as ‘free bets’ and I put in the minimum deposit (£5) last time

Any ‘free’ winnings I usually hammer that away on whatever is running as an outsider each way on the 5 runner Zanzibar camel race - i will then ‘cash out’ 

as soon as I have done this I will deactivate my account - not as easy sometimes as they would like to make out. 
 

I had an email the other day to ‘reactivate’ with a £2 free bet on England vs Siberia.
one provider used to offer me a free spin on the ‘winning wheel’ every day.
I understand it’s all designed to get you hooked and it’s a game they are very very good at, luckily deactivating my account works for me. 

 

I have worked with people that would blow £100 a lunch time on the machines in the bookies whilst waiting for races to run. 
a majority would say they only bet what they could afford to lose - I don’t think many could afford to lose £100 in a lunch time!

 

on an ever dwindling high street you only ever seem to see bookies and takeaways opening up - that has to tell us something 
 

Edited June 13 by ph5172

[marsh man]

I am the same as the members above , being a jobbing bricklayer most of my working life I had to earn my money the hard way by manual graft with only a average rate of pay, so there was no way I would dare to risk it by gambling , even when I had some spare cash I would invest it in a I S A bond so I got some interest and the capital was still there when the bond matured .

But we must not forget that there are a lot out there who do gamble , some with very low bets who pass a hour or so in the bookies on a Saturday afternoon , some with much bigger bets and those who do on line betting and have a few fairly big debts .

There must be a few members who are heading towards that last situation or some who have already reached it , so maybe they would be brave enough to tell us what things are like when you reach that stage with a gambling habit without disclosing any names of course .   

[JohnfromUK]

1 hour ago, Agriv8 said:

I am 53 years old and never been in a bookies or placed a bet. Couple of £ on the lottery now and again.

Older (67), but same as you.  But as said, for some people it's an 'addiction'.

Where addictions are concerned, rules/regulations/bans don't really ever seem to work.  As other examples;

1. Alcohol.  Like gambling, only seems addictive to some people and (also like gambling) is regulated, taxed and legal.  I suspect that things would only be marginally worse with less regulation, but maybe considerably worse with less taxation (lower price).  A lot don't seem to manage to quit, though many do.  I participate and fortunately it has never become an addiction for me.
2. Tobacco.  Again, legal and taxed/regulated.  Addictive to most people who participate, but many have succeeded in breaking the habit.  Gave up years ago - and wasn't all that hard for me to give up.
3. Drugs.  Clearly addictive and banned - but in many cases a 'blind eye' is turned and policing is questionably effective.  Ban hasn't worked well (but I'm not in favour of legalising).  Never participated.

Like all of the above - there is regulation for gambling, but also like the others, it's not very effective for the determined participants.  In addition to the 'regulated side' - there is a very thriving (apparently) much darker side in illegal gambling based on banned activities (dog fighting etc.)

Solutions?  Well (in my view) outright bans don't work unless you can near 100 % enforce them.  We don't/can't on drugs or (some types of) gambling.

Deregulate?  That makes it easier to get addicted in the first place  - so again, in my view not a good thing.

I'm not sure what else you can do?

[ph5172]

Funnily enough I have just cleared my ‘junk’ e mail. 
min there was an offer from a well known company offering me the chance to win ‘free spins’ on their slots. 
I could even log in every day to see if I have won again …. Every day … for free!

 

 

you can see how it works if you have that type of personality - the gamble of winning free bets with the chance to gable these for ‘real money’ with the chance to then gamble that 

free offers should be banned

[JohnfromUK]

Just now, ph5172 said:

free offers should be banned

A few years ago one of the shooting organisations sent me (as an enclosure with their magazine?) a junk mail which gave the first introductory bets 'free'.  Don't remember how it worked, but I wrote a very sharp letter to that organisation and received an apology.  It was claimed they had been misled and would make sure it didn't happen again. 

I don't remember all the details now, but I was surprised how incentives were being offered participate in an activity that is known to be addictive and have the ability to cause problems for many - to people who had expressed no interest.   I suppose the same used to happen with tobacco products and still does (to an extent) for alcohol.

I regularly get mail invitations to join ABCDE Wine Club etc., and I suppose I don't really mind that - which is sort of illogical, but I do buy wine and don't have a 'problem' with alcohol.

[Penelope]

1 hour ago, JohnfromUK said:

Drugs.  Clearly addictive and banned - but in many cases a 'blind eye' is turned and policing is questionably effective.  Ban hasn't worked well (but I'm not in favour of legalising).  Never participated.

This does not apply to cannabis, of course.

[Gordon R]

My mate's son got addicted to gambling quite a few years ago. Mate had debt collectors knocking on his door. Went to get professional help and now doesn't gamble. Married, with a couple of kids and a very decent job, but gambling nearly ruined his life.

[Genghis]

I make a small profit each month playing the free games on a few betting sites. There was a thread on here a few months ago about this.

 

I also make a small profit playing the Martingale stategy in roulette. I’m currently in profit of £481.80 this year. Admittedly, they do throw you out of casinos for doing this.

 

I’ve met a lot of people with a distaste for gambling, often because they knew someone who had an addiction issue. My stance is that gambling should be treated like alcohol and smoking, which it already is for the most part. By all means make people aware of the danger, and keep children far away. But if a grown adult wants to gamble, that’s their business. If they do develop an addiction then that’s where family and friends should step in, not the government.

 

As shooters/gun owners, I would hope that most of us are already tired of government overreach.

[Bigbob]

Apart from the lotto i only put a pound or two on a horse in the grand national , but i have a mate who would bet on two flies climbing up a wall he won £6000  on the Irish lotto and told everybody till he was asked how much he put on weekly and for how long before his big win he stopped that there and then ,but its a illness to some folk 

[London Best]

My Mrs  once bought two lottery tickets. 
One of the few rows we have had in 54 years together.

[TIGHTCHOKE]

If gamblers were making money we wouldn't have bookies, either real ones or on line.

An absolute MUGS GAME.

[islandgun]

I enjoyed an accumulating bet many years ago, an each way patent to be exact, £2.75 I think. Great fun studying form, betting on long odds outsiders and sitting at home and watching the races with a beer on a wet Saturday afternoon in winter, even won a few hundred on a couple of occasions 

Edited June 13 by islandgun

[Nublue 22]

It's disease, in my younger years every penny went on gambling, it's odd as I have never spoken about this, but the postman story has touched me. It's not about wining I just had to gamble. I don't think anyone who has never been addicted to somthing will ever understand. 

[shaun4860]

I used to have a bet on the national but no longer do this.

Used to enjoy a night at the dogs maybe 2-3 times a year but again no longer do it.

i worked with a guy who when we got paid (little brown envelope with cash) on a Friday would head straight to the bookies and sometimes lose the lot.

Tried smoking as a teenager but thankfully didn’t like it.

stopped drinking years ago.

Addictions ruins everyone they get hold of 🙁

[Jega]

Scarily the big American gambling organisation's have now identified the massive profits to be made from on-line gambling here in the U.K.

Just to name a couple " Bally " yes the big Vegas based casino group and "M.G.M." also a huge casino group .

Honestly my heat sinks when i read of the many many people who's lives have been absolutely destroyed by these parasites .

[old man]

Unfortunately I seem to live near the centre that spawns these  parasites.

[Westley]

On 13/06/2024 at 08:03, London Best said:

Me too! 
I’m 75 now and have never bet a penny on anything. In fact, to make me gamble you would have to prise the penny from my cold, dead fingers.

Do they not have a sweep at your shoots  ?

[Westley]

I worked at around 25 Grand Nationals when I was at work, regardless of what gamblers think, there is only 1 winner.....the Bookie.  A few of them parked their Rollers in the Owners car park.  There were several colleagues addicted to the slot machines in canteens too, leading to one getting a prison sentence for dipping petty cash money to feed the bandit  !

[yates]

A couple of the lads at work are always betting, one just on football and the other on anything and everything. The one who bets on everything regularly has big wins and big losses. He is very open and reported that he lost £700.00 last weekend. At work he's a nice bloke, very hard working but he's 65 and cannot afford to retire but gambling is in his blood. My Son is in his 30's  and all his friends use gambling apps as part of their normal weekly activities, betting is socially normal to them. To me Munglers post is very thought provoking, so many people have started gambling. I feel that due to the constant onslaught of media coverage and advertising we are being pushed in to accepting it as a social norm. I won't even mention scratch cards as the damned things along with syringes litter the streets of Rotherham. Mainly in the poorer areas, which surprise surprise is where most of the betting shops are located