The Spiel
By Ricki Chavez-Munoz
As more and more children get hooked into gambling, the segment that preys on the vulnerable just shrugs corporate shoulders and looks the other way. Or more aggressively press on with media content that delivers platitudes and excuses quoting nonsensical problem gambling numbers.
Gambling is as easy as ABC because the responsible gambling industry gets tainted with the same diatribe that places the blame for problem gambling fully on regulated as well as on unregulated and grey area gambling.
Having been involved in responsible gambling since its corporate inception, way back in 1997 in South Africa, the matter of Problem Gambling is square on the shoulders of the political classes. It’s just not possible that in the 21st Century there are still qualms about teaching the essentials of gambling to our children so that they have the knowledge that betting is an against the odds endeavour.
The mystique that surrounds gambling is a psychological barrier against the knowledge that the House will always have betting options stacked against the punter.
As the expansion of interactive and online gaming makes dents into that psychological barrier, bringing the House advantage to the family home, marketers and advertising ensure that freebies and gloss strengthen any dent in that wall, dulling any knowledge about winning and losing, with terrible side effects for society.
As unscrupulous gambling operators peddle their wares, the regulated industry suffers the consequences of such actions, while governments take the slow boat to China before appropriate regulations are in place, or worse still, take the asinine prohibitive route.
Years back, I suggested to some authorities that the principles of gambling should be taught at school so that children understand that engaging in the age old “I bet you” is not just a matter of heads I win, tails you lose. And that even the Stone-Scissors-Paper choice involves probabilities and risk.
Indeed, when it is a matter of betting one penny to win back a new shiny one from a classmate, the chances of doing so involved a 50% risk. However, when betting in a bookmakers or casino, the risk increases because the gambling business imposes a percentage to cover expenses and costs, making a business living to payback investors, payroll, operating expenses, government taxes, etc.
To put it plainly, it was a question of ABG – About Betting Gnosis. It may sound and feel like mouthful, but so does responsible gaming. The fact, however, is that there is an urgent need to give our children the knowledge that gaming, while it can be fun, can also be very toxic, and moreover holds similar pathological dependency risks such as drug taking and alcohol abuse.
The initiative in the UK House of Commons, where MPs have called for gambling in games to be banned, stating that “children are finding it extremely easy to slip into problem gambling at a very young age,” addresses not only operators’ expansive targeting of millennials’ appetite for gaming but also children and the vulnerable.
Responsible gaming is not only a matter for the gambling industry, it’s a duty of governments to address the risks involved in any form of gambling at any age, whether for pennies or pounds.
