Opinion
Ricki Chavez-Munoz
The House of Lords report ‘Gambling Harm – Time for Action’ notes that most gamblers are able to gamble safely. Nevertheless, it places some of the blame on the gaming industry for the growing number of problem gamblers, roughly estimated at between 250,000 and 460,000 individuals.
Setting a wide ranging series of proposals to strengthen the gambling regulatory framework in Great Britain, the report does not address the principal reason for problem gambling, limiting proposals to palliative measures instead of going to the root of the problem, which in essence is educational.
For years we have been suggesting that problem gambling is the result of a lack of quality information on the exposure to the risk of gambling, and we categorically state the need for society to know what gambling does entail. Not at the level of a palliative but at the level of basic education.
Although there have been suggestion and intimations that the intricacies of gambling should be part of the national educational curriculum, time and time again this aspect of problem gambling prevention is totally ignored by succeeding governments.
Science has classified problem gambling as a pathological disorder, which in its addictive stage shows sufferers exhibiting many similarities to those who have substance addictions.
In common parlance, it is said that an addicted gambler has “the gambling bug”. Such a bug is similar to a virus, which although not contagious also has no known antidote.
As gambling products spread online, it is not difficult to envisage that UK problem gamblers exceed the half a million mark a year from now. In other words, the government will promote expanding of the gambling bug with no sign of considering the damage the pathology causes families and society.
This government is taking another vacation on the treatment of a medical problem, just as it did prior to dealing with the spread of COVID-19. Now, problem gambling is nothing like coronavirus, but it also can cause devastation to vulnerable individuals and their families.
It is easy for politicians, social professionals, and our Lords in Westminster to accuse the gaming industry of, “ingenious and often unscrupulous exploitation of a soft touch regulation.” Our Lord Grade of Yarmouth added that the industry had, “created a perfect storm of addictive round-the-clock gambling. The behaviour of some gambling operators, where vulnerable people were targeted with inducements to continue gambling when the operators knew they could not afford to, shocked the Committee.”
However, Lord Grade was quick to acknowledge that, “Lax regulation of the gambling industry must be replaced by a more robust and focussed regime which prioritises the welfare of gamblers ahead of industry profits.”
And herein lies the crux of the matter – profits and their taxable revenues. Just as governments were happy to tax profits from the tobacco industry until they could no longer hide the pandemic cancer death toll, governments are happy to tax gambling revenues as an easy way out to balance the books.
Had children been taught at an early age that tobacco can cause cancer and death, fewer individuals would have died from exposure to the ciggy aspirational marketing campaigns of the tobacco industry. Instead, irresponsible politicians chose the easy way out through taxation rather than people’s good health.
Something similar is happening with the gambling industry, nowadays. Instead of teaching children about the perils and risks of gambling, fat politicians, lords and lobbyists ignore the real cause of gambling, happily blowing hot air without real solutions to the real problem of gambling exposure.
“Throughout this inquiry we have borne this in mind, and in formulating our recommendations we have sought to impact on the benefits of gambling only to the extent that is required to achieve the objective of making gambling safer for all,” the committee explained.
