"...And remember, please have fun!"

Lol..absolutely agree. Nailed on! I could never put it into words but you have done it for me. Yeah clever manipulative shower of d******s is what they are! The show the sports betting to the lads like its cool and trendy then the womans ads are all colourful and pink and fluffy like its a nice thing to do!! Its sickens me to the back teeth...should be a watershed...MY KIDS YOUR KIDS will be exposed to all that?! How on earth can they NOT be COMPULSIVE GAMBLERS???????

Thank you for getting me Justjoseph. 100%

It's really nasty.

What can be done?

I dont know. These ads are tolerable just about if there WATERSHED. otherwise there gonna be a huge problem. Need to bcome campaigners or piticians

I don't know how old you are JJ, but I remember some great, clever, adverts for Silk Cut, or Marlboro back in the 80's. But they weren't psychologically designed to "trigger". It's not about watershed, it's now all pervasive on social media accessable 24/7 by any age/demographic.

Smoking was phased out in films around 2000, because if you see cool characters like James Bond or Martin Riggs smoking it'll make kids do it, blah blah.

Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But now in 2016 there's more chance of seeing Iron Man kiss Hulk than either of them spark up a f*g.

My point is, why are gambling adverts allowed to get ever more sophisticated to suck in the sheeple, whilst other acknowledged addictions are now either banned or so heavily regulated you'd never see a "cool" advert about the product?

Well its a good question. I think the answer is simple. With alcohol and drugs...the results are plain to see(negative results)...like the black lungs heart disease blah blah blah u know. And with gambling is just secrecy.

Key point also...government make 50% tax on street bookied and casinos etc...theefore they are making millions themselves so they arent exactly urging ads to be banned ..u know? End of the day...MONEY TALKS MATE.

Im 30 by the way

true.

30? Twelve years remaining before you become me.

Save yourself JJ!

Go offline and live your life!

Vx

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What we should all do is click on the donate button on this site, as if we haven't already donated all our money, our time and our souls to the industry. I believe we are right at the start of a gambling problem epidemic and dread to think the personal carnage that will ensue in the coming years. The ads are everywhere, clever, insidious, appalling to the max. It's like advertising cigarettes and making them look cool, social, s**y and then saying just smoke them from time to time rather than the usual 20 a day they addicts tend to do. As if it's possible. The gambling industry will have you believe that gambling can be fun without being addictive. But they know it's addictive and they need it to be so as the majority of their money comes from the significant minority (us) who are problem gamblers. As to what can be done, you need a massive sea change like the tobacco industry a few years ago. And it can happen but you need people willing to fight for this agenda despite being shouted down by fellow gamblers who say just take responsibility and stop fighting the system, or by gamcare themselves who are part of the problem if you think it through logically. This thread wont last but the fight against the industry should go on regardless, even if it takes 50 years.

I think, targetting advertising needs to be changed for gambling, but completely getting rid of it, simply isn't going to happen, at least for now.

As some have said, the same as smoking advertising has been banned etc... Well when it comes to smoking it is 100% proven, that smoking is something which highly increases your chances of death. Smoking will have a large impact on the health services, because of the amount of people who fall ill through it. It pays for the government to do something to try to reduce that.

While, it may seem that when visiting site such as this, that everyone has a gambling addiction, it simply isn't true.

One of the first things a gambler needs to come to realises, it's no good blaming others, you need to take responsibility for your own actions, as you are hopefully a sensible adult. I spent years, blaming others, such as good old Mr BFM and Mrs JPM, it's only when I was a way into my gamble free journey, I realised, how mad it was, what I had been wasting so much time/money on in the past. No one made me do it, I just made the wrong decision for many many years.

Advertising is now much more intense however, which is why i'd like to see restrictions on it. I mean do we really need the bookies adverts during the sporting events, even non gamblers such as my mum, knows the bookies name and where to find them, if she wanted to. Those adverts are simply not needed. I also don't like to see adverts, which are clearly targetted at the bored housewife (should say husband as well, but definitely far more stay at home mums) or these sort of companies, able to sponsor day time tv shows (yes looking at you, well known bingo site, with man who tells everyone how they should live their lives on his show).

So while, I agree with the sentiment of this thread, I think a complete ban on gambling advertisiting isn't going to happen, but would love to see, at least a few restrictions on it.

Feels like these ads are literally growing like wildfire...they are constantly there and there really should be measures in place ..watershed being the main one. I fear for our next generation . I can see a growth in compulsive gamblers and eventually help centres and the like for us. These ads are cunning and sneaky(to us compulsive gamblers) although im sure 'normal' people dont see that

I got web marshalled @ work the other day & couldn't believe my eyes when I got a gambling pop up?!?