Safer Gambling Week - Are We Any Safer?

How much safer did we all feel after safer gambling week?

Personally, not any safer, but a lot more irritated. And I wasn’t the only one. Talking to staff in the shops is always quite revealing and last week was no exception.

There is always a conundrum when it comes to betting. Mixed messages fly around everywhere. Not so long ago I remember being invited to test my skills against the odds compilers at William Hill, presumably to see if I could make money off them. Maybe it’s longer ago than I care to remember because one of the messages from safer gambling week was that ‘gambling is not a way to make money’.

Bookmakers struggle to reconcile addicted gamblers doing their dough with responsible gambling. The reality is that the two struggle to cohabitate. To increase profits, they need to prey on the vulnerable punter and eradicate the ones who know what they are doing.

So it was in safer gambling week that the betting staff were fed up with being told what to do from above.

The directive was that they were to promote high profit margin business to help boost the company coffers while also being concerned about punters and making sure they weren’t overspending. The role of betting staff is difficult and, even as I write, I recall a story from post lockdown days when punters were restricted to a maximum of 15 minutes in a shop before being asked to depart.

A customer’s time was up and so the manageress had to ask him to leave. There is nothing aggressive or hostile about this person so I can only assume that the customer didn’t like being asked to depart, a request she was obliged to make.

Anyway, it turned into an incident from the point of view that a report was filed. It was all discussed with the manageress and the upshot was that she was told that the next time the punter returned she was to tell him he was barred. I don’t know how that went or if he even came back but I would not want to be put in that position. If he took having to leave after 15 minutes that badly I dread to think of his response to being barred.

Another interesting story emanating from last week was news that a company sent out emails to customers offering free spins on its slot game. This was a special set of customers – people who had made the decision to self-exclude!

I cannot help but feel that safer gambling week or gambling awareness have conveniently become tools to aid the bookmakers’ profits. If somebody were on drugs, what would you say in their best interests? Stay off them and get help and support to ensure you can function without them.

If there is a problem gambler, it’s good that bookmakers offer things like timeouts and the opportunity to exclude but, surely, if you’re excluding then you need to get away from it all together and then stay away from it.

I have always said that my first piece of advice to people is that if you have never gambled then don’t start. Most of the time we are past that stage and so it is not just about responsible gambling, it is about understanding gambling and all the traps that exist.

The bookmakers lure us in with free bets and special offers and make gambling appear like a route to great riches, so understanding the pitfalls and the numbers behind it all is crucial and appreciating that it can be dangerous to your wealth and health is really important. It can be addictive and hard to escape but that is not the sort of thing that is mentioned when you’re being offered a series of freebies.

I sometimes consider how I started gambling but that is straight forward. Recovering from a back injury I was in a betting shop instead of running around on a pitch, but the attraction was that it played to some of my strengths – sport and numbers. My sister wonders if I’d been so into it if I hadn’t kept winning the first time I went into an amusement arcade.

And this is where you must be ruthless with yourself. Why are you gambling? If I work on the basis that I am constantly told you cannot win money gambling over the long run, then why would I do it? There has to be an attraction, an appeal, a drive that makes you feel good when you win, a sense that you know what you are doing. It’s complex ‘cos personally I’d think after a few months of losing more than I was winning that I should give up.

So, ask the serious questions.

Why do I gamble? Am I losing more money than it is worth? Am I really enjoying it? Do I gamble on my own when nobody is looking? And my big one. Do I understand the mathematics of betting?

Everybody will have their own reasons for betting. If it’s for fun and that’s exactly what it is, then great. It’s a pastime you enjoy and it makes you happy without any outside interference.

If it’s not fun and it’s costing you then get out and find a new hobby or take the time to understand why gambling generally doesn’t pay so you can reconsider what you are doing and how you are doing it.