Time to stop bookies playing with people's lives, says MICHAEL GRADE
What’s innopropriate about that.’ [sic] Said on tombola chat hurry up and give me a win otherwise I won’t be able to feed my son and they took it deadly serious, and now I it just says I am banned from the chat room for inappropriate behaviour!!! Unilever sells tea business to private equity firm CVC… ALEX BRUMMER: Britain needs a nuclear future to keep the… Gupta’s metals empire sells two factories to a… If you have any concerns pertaining to in which and how to use 918kiss me, you can make contact with us at our site. Former Formula One boss Eddie Jordan joins three-way bid… The news comes after Tom’s father Robbie Waterhouse, 66, was due to appear in court in February after he was hit with five charges of unlawfully publishing gambling advertisements on his website, reported.
A gambler can keep going much longer, during every waking moment, thanks to the ever-present availability of gambling websites. An alcoholic will usually reach a point of stupor, and stop drinking for the night. There is absolutely no reason why most of our proposals could not be implemented tomorrow. For instance, our committee heard of cases where people, recognising they had a gambling problem, told the betting websites they desperately wanted to quit. Most of the laws and regulations necessary to deal with problem gambling are already in place – but are not used.
They must also guard much more stringently against games designed to appeal to children. About 55,000 problem gamblers are under 16, a situation that is self-evidently illegal. The regulatory regime for gambling was put together in an analogue age and has not caught up with this digital revolution. I’m reluctant to draw parallels between gambling addiction and alcohol abuse, but there is one telling difference. Purchasing a loot box is simply a game of chance – played with real money.
One gamer told MPs that he was spending up to £1,000 a year on them in a single console football game. A survey by the Gambling Commission in 2018 found that 31 per cent of children aged 11-16 had paid for loot boxes. That’s about one a day and, overwhelmingly, these are young men. Our committee spoke with many families who had lost loved ones. It is unutterably tragic, and there is no excuse for any failure to implement safeguards now. One of our key recommendations is that speed of play online should be the equivalent of real-world play.
In a casino, minutes elapse between spins of the roulette wheel, as the croupiers collect and pay out bets and before more bets are placed and the wheel goes round again. If you have a proclivity to addiction this is especially dangerous. Yet because the regulator does not come down hard enough on the gambling industry, the betting sites have been allowed to exploit the most vulnerable in society. Once again, there is no reason why these should not be implemented now.