The government will never act on gambling addiction, betting firms are their favourite cash cow – iNews

Denise Coates betting company, Bet365, disbursed 480,000,000 in levies last year and again topped the list of Britains highest taxpayers. Peter and Fred Done of the BetFred empire came fifth.

You shouldnt be impressed; be angry. These are the spoils of one of our most damaging, swaggering, sordidly profiteering industries.

People are hurting, people are ensnared, people are dying because they are caught in the cycle of gambling addiction. Successive governments merely tinker with regulations because they do not want to weaken the cash cows. Profits come before human well-being every time.

I hear reports that the NHS will no longer accept donations for addiction clinics from gambling businesses. Good. But why was this money ever accepted? We know why.

In 2016 Fintan Drury, chairman of Paddy Power between 2002 and 2008, spoke out about the cosy relationship between gambling companies that was unchecked by any moral code. He also said that this was because the British governments desire to boost Treasury coffers override[s] consideration of acute social ills.

Another excited Paddy Power boss, Stewart Kenny, now a psychotherapist, has misgivings about the damage caused by the products he sold. I say to these apostates: Its too bloody late. If I seem unforgiving, its because I am.

Before I was born, my father was a compulsive gambler. His debts devastated the family. One night he went into City Bar in Kampala, Uganda, and left his toddler son and daughter in the car to play Blackjack. My frantic mum walked to the bar and shouted. Papa, never previously violent, broke her little finger. It stayed bent. That made him stop.

Millions of Britons will relate to this story. According to the Gambling Commission, punters annually spend around 14.5 billion on gambling, much of it now online. More than 340,000 Britons are seriously hooked and children are impacted too.

In 2013, when they were deregulated, TV gambling adverts increased by 600 per cent in the space of a year. Many of these still appear during live football broadcasts. According to the BBC, there has been a 114 per cent rise in gambling-related hospital cases since 2014.

Tony Blair facilitated this social disaster. He and Tessa Jowell liberalised the laws and here we are. Does he show remorse? Jowell did, but not him, not ever.

Hundred of suicides are related to gambling problems. My colleague Ian Birrell has written movingly about victims, among them Phil Stretton, 20, Aaron Sluman and Joshua Jones both 23, Jack Ritchie 24, Ryan Myers, 27, Kimberly Wadsworth 32, Lewis Keogh and Daniel Clinkscales both 35. After Jack Ritchie died, his parents Charles and Liz founded Gambling with Lives to share grief and stop the evil. They are like those protestors in Tiananmen Square, small and helpless as the tanks roll on.

Most addicts are male, but the number of compulsive, secret female gamblers is rising. Experts believe almost a million of them are in that dark place. It was reported that Reality TV star Scarlett Moffatts mother and manager, Betty, stole 50,000 from her daughter to fund the habit; Beauty blogger Abbey Little bet once for fun, was besieged by online adverts, lost 5000 and took an overdose. Since the lockdown, she fears says it has got out of hand.

One reader emailed this week: My husband, he lost all our savings putting money on horses. It was terrible. He died in 2014. My twin girls 19, are now gambling online using my cards. I cant live like this again. How can this be happening?

How indeed. Its a question Ms Coates et al and Rishi Sunak will never answer, because they have the power.

See the rest here:

The government will never act on gambling addiction, betting firms are their favourite cash cow - iNews