Gambling with our Lives

Gambling is all around us. It’s the dingy slots venue on the high street, with its chequered carpets, leather stools and flashing lights. It’s the chime of the door and the gust of wind that forces its way in as people make their sports predictions on a Saturday morning. It’s the gigantic casino on the edge of the city, where a plethora of characters hang out. The high rollers gather there, playing cash poker games and then the tournaments, occasionally they mutter a few words to each other coldly. A middle-aged woman tries her luck at the roulette table as a giddy, 18 year old lad watches with fascination, not only in the turn of the wheel and the blurred spins of the numbers attached to it, but inversely at the nonchalance of his fellow player; her eyes watch the table unwaveringly. Routinely, she pushes her chips around the cloth, each time with the elegance and certainty of a ballet dancer, each time in different combinations and sizes, each time will be her last. 

Sometimes it’s loud, in the cheers of men at the racecourse and the bashing of a slot machine in the bookies; others watch from the corner of their eyes, voyeuristically, as if it had not cast the same spell on them. Sometimes it’s subtle, in the frequent checking of a phone at work, or the absence of someone from an event. Sometimes it is promoted as fun, in the celebrations of matchgoers on an advert, or in the intrigue of friends talking about their bets. Sometimes we are warned of its dangers, in the small print of the terms and conditions, or in the catchy dialogue of the actor in an advert. Sometimes we feel it around us. Sometimes we can’t see it. Sometimes we look forward to it. Sometimes it’s harmless. Sometimes we forget it exists. Always, it is there. 

Recently, I have reflected upon becoming accountable for my own decisions in life. In my recovery, I have accepted that the path I took led me here and that some of the choices along the way were pivotal in creating the person I am today - a person who requires healing. However, despite the presence of my accountability, I can’t shake the idea that I was abused by the UK gambling system. You’ll see that I’ve named it a system, as opposed to a culture, or anything else. This is because I truly believe there is a systematic approach in creating compulsive gamblers, not only here in the UK, but around the world. If we call it a culture, there is the implication that the people are those who have chosen this way of life, creating a society where everything has odds and nothing can’t be bet upon. I just don’t think it’s true. It’s the bookies who set the prices, and we’ve all heard the famous adage, “the house always wins.” In terms of the government’s handling of the takeover of gambling in the UK, we may look at another saying, “if you can’t beat them, join them.”

Let’s look at it this way. Over here we love sports, we love competing, challenging one another to a game of something. From an early age we enjoy playing board games and cards, all of it is just sport, and no money needs to be riding on it for our amusement. We love watching games play out, both equally as entertained and annoyed by the fact we can’t affect the outcome. We understand we are spectators and our enjoyment is in the hands of other people. But somewhere along the way, firms realised they could make an awful lot of money out of our wanting to be involved. People duly obliged and we found enjoyment from throwing a few quid at the football over the weekend. Gambling firms realised that the traditional bookies wasn’t conducive in making them billions, so they took to the online world. Again, this provided the consumer with an opportunity to punt from the peace of her own home, and potentially even to make some money. As the online gambling world grew quicker than anyone could create legislation, suddenly the gambling firms had everyone in their pockets.

Despite my lifelong love for sports, at one stage in my life I absolutely, unequivocally believed I had to have a bet on a game to enjoy it. Reflecting on this very notion is how I know I was coerced, possibly groomed, into my gambling addiction.

There’s no way of avoiding the marketing. If you’re watching a game at home, the pre-match, half time, and post-match advertisements are predominantly from gambling firms. According to Rob Davies in The Guardian, “Half of Premier League football clubs have advertised gambling on webpages aimed at, or featuring, under-18s.” He goes on to say how at least 10 of the 20 clubs in the league appeared to be breaking their own regulations in relation to advertising betting sponsors on shirts. There will be a ban from 2026 on having betting sponsors on the front of football shirts in the Premier League. A small victory when you consider that they’ll still be allowed on the back and on the sleeves. It took government until 2020 to start redrafting gambling laws which have been in place since the Blair era, the reviews of these laws are still yet to take effect. This means that ever since smart phones and online gaming have existed, betting firms have not had to abide by any new or specific regulation. The government are so far behind in their controlling of this issue.

The CEO of UK gambling firm Bet 365, Denise Coates, took home £469million in 2021, £271million this year, and is worth an estimated £7.5billion.

As one of the innovators in the UK market, Bet 365 sold all of their betting shops and took solely to the online world. Denise Coates is one of the pioneers of this systematic approach in creating compulsive gambling. Coates, and other firms, have been investing in technology to create more addictive and efficient ways to trap people in a world of gambling. Their clever marketing ploys featuring actors like Ray Winstone have contributed to creating and normalising this gambling culture. It’s their doing, not ours. We are merely the subjects of their terror.

I’ve made my peace with the situation I’m in, I am accountable. Financially and mentally I have been crippled by the systematic approach by gambling firms to hook me onto their product. I’ll get no apology from them. They are still out here, making money off people who have this addiction; their practices are evil. They hound gamblers with offers when they take a break. They have made 24/7 gambling normalised practice. They limit and exclude the players who actually win. They take basically no accountability for the way they destroy lives. They, however, are not the only ones to blame.

The banks have been too slow in recognising the issues of online gambling. Personally, I was able to take out 3 loans over the course of a few years, having gambled pretty much everyday from my accounts with that same bank. My credit score was unaffected at the time, but how was the gambling not flagged-up as an issue? Surely the bank should have their customers safety in mind, as well as their own capital. The compulsive escalation of my addiction was directly funded by these loans. If I would have been turned down for the extra money, I may have been able to stop years before I actually did. It’s estimated that there could be up to 496 gambling related suicides every year in the UK. How many of these could have been prevented if the banks didn’t recklessly fund people’s addictions?

A lot of my recovery writing centres around this idea of accountability, and I often delve into my agency in relation to gambling harm. Yet, it’s important to acknowledge I became hooked on something that was designed to be addictive. It was years in the making and maybe I was born at perfect time for their new era of online gaming. I was groomed with smart phones, PlayStation, Xbox and Facebook games designed to be addictive, designed with gambling elements to their core. In battling this thing it takes a lot out of me, and it took all of my strength to admit I had a problem. It may take even more to get those involved in the UK’s gambling system to admit they are the problem. I’m ready for the fight.