To think gambling ads should be banned?

[Mumsknot]

Dp and I settled down to watch an ITV drama on ITVX last night and the first ad was a gambling ad for a bookie. This repeated itself many times. Then there was another sparkly, shiny one for some bingo company.

Given the misery gambling causes, should we even allow them to advertise? I really don’t think we should. They make enough money as it is and shoving it in people’s faces can only encourage people particularly those who have gambling issues.

Agreed

Plus ban on gambling companies sponsoring events, players etc

Yes, I do - and I say that as a very occasional gambler myself. I'm not against gambling but it's something to which people can easily get addicted and the adverts on TV are usually for the particularly addictive formats - online casinos and so on.

Yes, especially the one where the mans eyes go glazed - trying to show how exciting/blissful watching sport whilst gambling is. How the people who run these firms live with themselves I have no idea, literally peddling death and misery to vulnerable people. There are 250-650 people a year taking their own lives due to gambling addiction and yet these companies are allowed to persist.

Yes. Agree completely. TV ads for gambling were illegal until 20-or-so years ago. I can't believe how much we have stepped backwards in this respect. Especially when you think of how mindless and deliberately hyper-addictive the new forms of gambling are - much more toxic than just the sports betting or real-world poker and casinos of the past.

It's like we suddenly started making children climb up chimneys again, or allowed people to buy arsenic at the local chemist's.

And the ads are so fucking mindless and crass, like they were trying to replicate the zombie brain-trance of addiction.

AND they go on and on about 'taking time to think' - essentially turning the feeble statutory requirements to have some care for customers into part of their push to ensnare them. It is alice through the looking glass stuff.

I wonder who changed the law to allow them to advertise. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were some hefty donations going on there!

that’s dreadful how many suicides are linked to gambling addiction

This will be the last season where football teams can be sponsored by gambling companies. Considering the majority of Premier league teams are sponsored by them, this is a significant change for the better

So AI tells me

The Gambling Act 2005, passed under Tony Blair’s Labour government, changed UK law to significantly liberalize gambling advertising, with the new rules coming into force in 2007.

As someone who became addicted to gambling due to medication (dopamine agonist) and did try to commit suicide, I totally agree that it shouldn’t be allowed 😢

Agree with you OP but it won't happen. They add a little caveat " please gamble responsibly" to their adverts and that seems to be enough, they clearly don't even mean it.
So many game shows sponsored by gambling, online bingo dressed up as fun, not gambling.
Nothing will happen, I know a number of people who have lost tens of thousand of pounds due to their addiction.

Yes, I think that's right. The justifications were around providing economic support to an industry (and therefore boosting jobs etc), but I imagine there was pretty intense and nakedly self-interested lobbying. It's even worse than govt capitulation to the food industry, which hamstrings all the attempts to mitigate their peddling of UPF, salt, sugar, etc.

They all pretend to care about consumers, and successive govts pretend to believe that they can be trusted to act responsibly with light-touch regulation and self-regulatory fig leaves (as it were).

I’d agree. I’ve noticed thst many adverts are for keeping it safe / fun by having “breaks”, “limits” built in. I’m very much a fan of just keeping my money thanks.

It’s presumptive like you wil gamble so come gamble with us when really it’s better for vast majority just not to gamble.

Yes. Not so much as I think it will make a difference to those who gamble disastrously, but because they are so bloody tiresome.

absolutely yes.

I completely agree with you, OP. Why do we have bans on advertising alcohol - which many people enjoy responsibly in moderation, but can wreck and end many lives; yet gambling, which is the same, is given a free ride.

They like to make out that they're there for the people who like to put on a small social flutter - a fiver a week or whatever and a bit of harmless fun with their friends; but we all know that their huge profits - their very existence, I'd say - come from people's crippling addictions, where they battle ashamed and alone and end up with their and their families' lives completely destroyed.

It's such a mixed message to be pretending to care about protecting young people from social media, yet at the same time allowing blanket advertising of such a harmful thing where children and young people will be watching. I've got Channel 5 on now, and they just advertised some bingo company. There will be loads of little kids in households where they're exposed to this over and over again - and the idea that everybody gambles routinely will become as normal a thing to them as brushing their teeth or having their breakfast as they grow.

Agree OP. I was horrified by the changes made by Tony Blair's government, completely unnecessary.