Ban all on line gambling

[Tallcurves]

Don't bother with new weak rules just ban it.
even with VPN's so your computer looks elsewhere you can still do it!

it's causes to much pain and has no real controls.

Wow.

This is such a horrible, ignorant attitude. Addiction isn't about "self control".

OK... And what about the people who aren't able to be that "sensible", for whatever reason...?

Some people are vulnerable and do not have the mental resources or executive functioning to know or be able to quit.

Even if it is a "lack of self control" they still deserve to be protected.

Why do they have a "lack of self control"? Are they just bad people? That's way too simplistic.

People are often vulnerable and lack self control for reasons that are deep and complex. They need help.

If online gambling isn't banned (and I'm not necessarily saying it should be) then there should definitely be more careful checks and procedures around it to protect vulerable people. If you've ever worked in addiction you will know the horrible impact it can have.

Far to much advertising on tv for gambling which idiot said it was OK?
Ray Winstone etc and the owners of Bet365 etc are making money on the back of people's misery.

Why don't you do some research into addiction to prevent you from making poorly judged comments like this, based on your single-person anecdata, in the future 👍

Agreed. Imagine cigarette manufacturers sponsoring football teams, making comedy adverts and being praised on Twitter for their funny content, or seeing whole sections of newspapers telling you what the best fags to buy this weekend.

I see very little benefit and enormous harm, I think many of the Blair-era changes in gambling legislation should be reversed. The problem is the tax it generates.

It's not poorly judged. There is only one winner at the end of the day that's the bookie. Fact.
Your money is hard to come by, keep it for yourself, don't throw it away on a whim and wreck your life. Sensible.👌

Well addiction isn't a lack of self control, it is something which is a result of many different factors such as childhood trauma, poor mental and physical health, trauma in adulthood, lack of positive and supportive relationships, poor coping skills, etc.... the list goes on. The same as alcohol or drugs, people may turn to damaging behaviours due to any of the above and more. Gambling has been proven to be highly addictive because of the way it interacts with the brain, put that alongside the mass marketing, bombardment of advertising on TV, through social media and in the street and you have a recipe for something which a lot of people find difficult to get away from. Of course not everybody will develop a problem just like not everyone develops a problem with alcohol, but it is one that I don't think people realise how problematic it can be, especially as it is often a hidden addiction

@Tallcurves I couldn't agree more. The lobbying power of the gambling industry is absolutely disgusting.

But they don't, so the NHS, their families and society pick up the pieces.

Gambling industry made 14 billion in profit last year.

They should pay a substantial levy for the costs they cause us all.

They ve had 13 years to reform & still they will not, its not Blairs fault

Online Gambling can be incredibly damaging, and accounts for around 2 deaths a week, and is also associated with domestic violence, a myriad of other crimes. It’s costs us, as a society, a lot of money to clean up the mess that gambling leaves in its wake.

The gambling industry is notoriously lax with consumer protections - see any one of a number of cases, and the body that is supposed to regulate it … really doesn’t.

Rather than ban it .. it needs better control and regulation, in the same way we control and regulate smoking & alcohol. Gambling is a public health issue in the same way.

I am a former slots addict, so maybe a bit bias.. who knows.

There should be greater sanctions for companies who do not adhered to the correct consumer protection .. and not just monetary ones

There should be more control around how, when, and where, they advertise

They should be much quicker at closing accounts.

They should have to advertise .. on the front page … the % of people who place a bet and win, the value of the money spent by their customers the previous week & the amount that was won, and also, how much profit they made the previous year. I see it a bit like the warnings on fag packets.

The industry should also do more to support services helping people who are in addiction - and their families.

Also on the topic of advertising … no famous faces or voices (which I think it ones of the rules for alcohol)

The problem is, the MPs who are supposed to manage this stuff, get treated well by the Gambling industry.

I agree with the advertising in particular. Very strange that children wear football strips or go to a stadium sponsored by bet365 or similar. They end up growing up feeling sentimental about the brand because it was on their team's shirt which is all kinds of fucked up.

Don’t be ridiculous. We can’t ban things just because some people can’t regulate themselves.

That’s their problem.

Gambling will never be banned due to the tax it generates, however I do think much stricter restrictions are needed to protect customers.

William Hill were recently fined for a number of failings including allowing a customer to open an account and spend £23k in 20 mins without any checks, but they still managed to keep their licence. Fines do nothing to encourage gambling companies to bring in stricter checks, it has been reported they make 60% of their profits from the 5% of customers who either have a gambling addition or who are at risk, therefore even the risk of large fines will not stop them trying to encourage those who are most at risk. IMO the Gambling Commission needs to start taking away licences to encourage other companies to put in the correct controls.

I don't think it should be banned, but I do think they shouldn't be allowed to advertise at all.

In much the same the way that the drinks and tobacco industries should as well.

Banning gambling simply won't work as you can only ban UK based companies. Numerous offshore bookies operate from Malta, Gibraltar or pretty much anywhere you can name. There are better ways to crack the nut.

1. Tighter regulation on UK bookmakers - more like Financial Services firms have to observe. Affordability checks, rules about treating people fairly or publishing statistics on losses

2. Outright ban on any form of credit, whether granted by bookmaker or credit card

3. Force payment processors (Visa, Mastercard) to refuse to process card payments to offshore bookmakers. Similarly put the onus on the payment processors to prevent payment wallets (Paypal, Skrill) from sending money to offshore sites.

Gambling addicts will find ways to gamble. Pushing them towards tighter regulated, onshore bookmakers will give them an outlet without driving them to use unregulated, more dangerous offshore firms.

Default limit on all debit and credit cards of how much can be spent on gambling each month.
You can apply to have that limit changed but it's on a centrally held list, and people can apply to query if a particular person is on the list. Brother-in-law wants, mysteriously, to borrow ten grand? ... you can write in and see if he's on the list. Partner swears he's given up gambling? Is he on the list?

The gambling companies won't like it but as it still lets people gamble as much as they like, I can't see they have much of an argument against something along those ^ lines.

If you buy scratch cards the person in the shop actually says to you that's £xxx
If the amount they asked for was your entire months earnings don't you think most people would pause & think again?

The sales of alcohol are regulated - a pub isn't supposed to serve you if they think you are too drunk.

As for junk food, well you'd have to eat a bloody lot of hamburgers to cause the damage a gambling addict can do in just a few minutes online.

Why ban anything though? People need to be responsible for their own actions. Why should something that people enjoy be banned because a few can't control themselves? People need to stop blaming stuff and look at their own lack of willpower.

I can't stand gambling myself but that's ok, some people enjoy it.

Well … let’s take away the rules surrounding Crack Cocaine, Murder, and Driving Dangerously.

People should be responsible for their own actions, and we should forget we live in a society where other people need to be protected.

Does it ever get tiresome abdicating personal responsibility for some of you?

Maybe I’m just in a mood today, but good grief is it discouraging that some are so willing and in cases like this demanding for someone else to make decisions for them.

I swear if a government put out an ad saying “Great place to live, we’ll find you a job, a place to live, and protect your safety with limits on dangerous behavior and conditions. We’ll take care of your needs in return for loyalty and work according to your ability” Some people would be lined up for days, not realizing this is how every communist dictatorship got started.

I just don’t get it.

And yes I’m totally expecting the “Don’t be so dramatic we’re talking about gambling nobody needs to gamble” response which would be met with the “what’s next/where does it end” rebuttal and so on. Like I said…tiresome

Yes to banning online gambling.

No to banning gambling full stop.

That’s society though, isn’t it. I might be in favour of scrapping a lot of social support systems and a whole load of laws, enabling me to do largely as I please with little ill-effect because I have the ability to make good choices. But I have to acknowledge that there are people out there whose vulnerabilities render them less capable of making good choices, and in need of some protection which may impact on the choices available to me.

Online gambling is an industry worth hundreds of billions of dollars and employs a lot of people whose designated role it is to design a model and user experience which preys on and takes advantage of vulnerable people and those predisposed to addictive behaviours, so that they spend as much money as possible. It’s a model with harm and destruction deliberately built in - the harm isn’t an unintended side effect.