to hate the easy access to gambling which exists nowadays and wish it was more controlled?

[GetOrfMoiiLand]

I hate gambling - and I am sure that it is more widespread and easy to access nowadays.

My dd's friend (who is 18) went to a casino in Bristol with a load of mates at the weekend. I think it is so sad that a bunch of kids this age would think of going to a bloody casino. I would never have thought of that as a night out at that age.

DP has also employed lots of young lads who have got into trouble with casual gambling. One of them went and put all his wages into a roulette machine in a bookies one Friday afternoon. The nexy d ay he had to collect his partner and newborn baby from hospital and they had no money. He also has employed a lad who would buy a tenner's worth of scratchcards every morning.

There are bookies everywhere - they are always full and loads of shambling wrecks always seem to congregate outside. Plus it is so easy no to gamble online - christ knows how many online bingo sites there are, plus poker etc. It's horrible.

Mind you I may be being out of order - I really loathe gambling and don't even like lottery tickets. But it just seems to be everywhere.

I agree OP, gambiling has increased even though we know the cause/effect of addiction, now. Many forms was created tohook the majority and women, a bit like alco-pops. I am in my fourties and i don't think that younger poster will quite apprieciate what you mean..

I don't think that you can compare the selling of scratch cards, slot machines etc everywhere in the same way as other vices that were engrained in our culture (drinking/smoking) before we had the knowledge that we do now.

Butkin- I think your second sentence sort of contradicts the first one.

In that most of the big money in racing is spread amongst a limited amount of owners, trainers and yards. Not much corruption needed to skew the majority of the finance in a particular direction.

I would never say that racing is completely clean but it is in the bookmakers interests for it to be so because thay confidence encourages punters - as it does in the squeaky clean racing in Hong Kong - and at the end of the day they want "churn".

I don't think it contradicts it in the same way that just because there is a bent bowler doesn't make cricket corrupt. As long as the wronguns are caught and - which are they now much more so than in previous decades - things are improving. I would say the vast majority of racing is straight.

What find quite scary is how normalized it has all become. Since going on mat leave and seeing daytime tv all the adverts seem to be for bingo, loans and selling your gold.

The bingo ones come across as joining a gossip club - well one where the woman pops into her friend to get her online does.

They gloss right over that you are actually gambling, even giving you a free introductory offer of usually a tenner.

Whilst i know casinos are dangerous, i see these as less so as you need to make an effort to go whilst online can be done from the comfort of your own home.

I used to work for a large UK bank, in the department that processed credit/debit card payments for the merchants. Some of our biggest customers were gambling companies and were very profitable.

Except we didn't call it the "gambling" sector - it was renamed the "gaming" sector. Probably because "gambling" sounds too seedy which it is but "gaming" sounds a bit more fun.

So no, OP, YANBU. One of my friends should be living the life of Riley (2 good incomes, no childcare costs), but they're up shit creek because of his gambling addiction.