I just watched an advert for P****P**** - offering a free £10 bet if a customer places five £10 bets in a week. That's £50 staked in a single week. Anybody who can afford to gamble £50 a week - about £225 a month - without it having a negative impact on their other spending needs ... I don't want to hear them complaining about match ticket prices.
Just another example of how shops of different types get inside your head to make you think you're getting something for nothing so that you spend more than you need to, or intended to.
What I can't understand is how a big mainstream betting company like this can possibly claim it is encouraging responsible gambling. I'm the factory manager of a small manufacturing firm. I earn just about bang on the national average wage. After all prepaid taxes, that leaves me about £2,250 a month in my pocket (the equivalent of £500 per week) - and of course everything else has to come out of that net income; Rent, Council tax Utility bills, Insurance, Groceries, clothes, household consumables, Costs of running a car, etc. In my case I don't have a family of my own, but even without kids, there is not a huge amount left when all of the things that need to be paid for are covered. And this company is enticing me to bet over £50 per week with them... £1 in every £10 of my net income. Not my disposable income. My entire net income. Just who is this company's target audience? There must be millions of people who are younger than me, earlier in their careers or working lives than I am, not earning even close to the national average wage. Exactly the kind of people who watch sports TV and who must see adverts like this one dozens of times each week. How many of them can really afford to bet over £50 every week, in order to claim another free £10 bet? Some of them are being asked for a lot more than £1 in every £10 that they take home. More like £1 in ever £7, or even more than that. Not £1 in every £7 of their disposable income. £1 in every £7 that they bring home, and also have to pay all their bills with and perhaps support their kids. That is not encouraging responsible gambling.
Sports betting is actually not as bad as you are making out Lardi... some bets actually win you money... even @Royston had a winning bet yesterday What you should be complaining about are... 1) The National Lottery... this targets with their Lotto and scratchcards the poorest sections of our community with promises of riches... with odds of 1 in 175 million the only winners of the National Lottery are the companies running it. 2) Gaming machines in Betting Shops... once again targeting the poorest in Society where it wouldn't take a week to lose £50 but less than half an hour!
Fair points AHLL, The National Lottery is now such a transparent rip-off I cannot believe anybody plays it anymore. Fixed Odds Betting Terminals inside betting shops are a serious problem I understand, from seeing news reports about them. But I neglected to mention them in my first post probably because I never come across them during the course of my everyday life, as I don't frequent betting shops. Being able to feed hundreds of pounds into a slot machine in a few minutes, within the environment of a betting shop, is clearly a potential trap for people who are addicted to gambling. I assume they are tolerated by the Government purely because of the amount of tax revenue they generate? The fact that these fixed-odds terminals are not included in any of the betting company adverts we are constantly bombarded with means everyone is well aware they are a shameful aspect of the business. I guess I began this thread with the TV advert example is because I cannot get away from these ads. They swamp the satellite TV channels, especially at weekends. And when I took a moment to think about that particular PP ad, offering a free £10 bet in return for betting £50 or more in five separate bets over the course of a single week, I was a bit shocked at how much they are actually asking for in return for their freebie. Granted too that sometimes a bet will come in - that's the attraction of course. But we all know that these companies want regular customers. They want their bread-and-butter punters to keep coming back indefinitely of their own accord once they have been recruited. They want their customers to develop a gambling habit. And eventually the house always wins. I'm not saying gambling should be outlawed. It's a free society and of course grown men and women should have the right to spend money they have earned however they wish, within our cultural traditions of course. A drink, a smoke, a bet -- any of these should be enjoyed by those who like them, as long as others are not being harmed by such indulgence. But I'm concerned that in just a few years gambling culture has become so prevalent that it dominates TV advertising, it sponsors ever more teams and it sends an unrelenting message out to everybody in society regardless of their ability to afford it, or whether they are old enough to fully understand it for that matter. That advert where Ray Winstone says "We are everywhere, we see everything" is another slightly disturbing one in my opinion. It gives the impression that gambling culture is running our society, or that the temptation to bet is like a stalker that you cannot get away from regardless of whether you want it or not, so you might as well give in and have a bet. Maybe I am over-stating my case... But perhaps it is time to have some reasonable regulation.
