Gambling seriously damages your wealth. No one feels this razor-sharp truism more than the inveterate visitor to the high street turf accountant or the local casino. Gamblers’ weakness is not ignorance, it is to believe they will join the small band of punters who throw loaded dice and strike it lucky against all odds.

Gordon Brown is the Prime Minister who put the “no” in the Manchester supercasino. Now, at the eleventh hour, James Purnell, the Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, has conjured a fiendishly complicated series of guidelines that appear to be a desperate punt to protect children from gamblers’ advertising. It is important. of course, to shelter tender minds. But rather than struggling to define when replica football shirts are not fit to be worn by lanky teenagers but are suitable for beer-bellied men, a straightforward wealth warning might have sufficed. How about a simple line on every advert truthfully telling how much profit the bookie makes from blockheaded punters? Whether it be 5p in the £1 or 50p, it would be sure to focus minds.

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Filed under: * Culture-Watch

1. MJD_NV wrote: Change it from ‘“wealth” to “health” & I’ll buy it. I deal with the disabled   Among colleagues, we have the highest rate of mental & emotional disease in the U.S., here in the Las Vegas valley. Coincidence?  Hardly. Dealers, Sport bookers’, etc who accept bets from the hooked should suffer no less punishment than the barmaid who takes money from a drunk. Shame on those who neither accept that nor enforce it. August 8, 12:45 am | [comment link]

2. Cousin Vinnie wrote: Why can’t we just educate people on the odds?  It’s just basic math.  In some ways casino games and sports betting are fairer than the stock market.  Did you lose because those dice were loaded, or because somebody misrepresented the playing list of Man U?  Not likely.  But lots of folks lost money because Enron’s numbers were phony. August 8, 12:55 am | [comment link]

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