Is it only me that thinks something is inherently wrong with the TV betting adverts during sporting events, especially football matches?  I am surprised it  hasn’t caused an uproar.  I suspect a lot has to do with the fact that gambling probably represents one of the few growth areas in our economy – one of the things Britain is good at.

Is it really acceptable to encourage people, especially children, to believe that it is perfectly normal to consider placing bets on such nonsense as who scores the next goal, which is the next corner flag to be knocked over, or even who wins?  Or perhaps it is normal, which is even more tragic.  ‘Doing the pools’ or a weekly punt on the Lottery is one thing (well, two things), but making gambling an automatic part of watching a game seems almost corrupt.  Do the authorities not realise that gambling is, potentially, very addictive?  Of course they do, in exactly the same way they have known for long enough that not enough is being done by them or by most people to provide for retirement.  But that’s tomorrow’s (and someone else’s) problem.

It might be perfectly acceptable for over-paid footballers to idly fritter away their excessive funds on gambling of one sort or another, but it should not be considered suitable for more normally paid people to supplement their meagre existence – it is more likely to make their existence even more meagre.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 23rd, 2011 at 1:08 pm and is filed under DPM. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.