Gambling Companies Turn Addiction Into Profit
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Summary
Director of Cleaning Gambling and Campaigner for Labour's gambling reform campaign, Jeremy Corbyn, joins us on the show to talk about his journey to recovery from gambling addiction and why online gambling should be legalised in the UK.
Transcript
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gambling is very neurologically similar gambling addiction to cocaine addiction it's difficult for
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people to comprehend i accept because it isn't a substance and you think how do you get addicted
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to something that isn't a substance how is it having that effect on those neurological pathways
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in the same way cocaine does but but it's a physiological addiction
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hello and welcome to trigonometry i'm francis foster i'm constantin kissin and this is a show
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for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people our brilliant guest today
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is the director of cleanup gambling mad's up cousin welcome to trigonometry thanks for having
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me on it's great to have you on listen before we get into talking about what we're going to talk
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about tell everybody a little bit about who are you how are you where you are what has been your
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journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us oh well I'm a campaigner for
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gambling reform and I was addicted to gambling when I was younger I got addicted to fixed odds
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betting terminals from the age of 16 and yeah got into a huge amount of debt and
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had a profound impact on my my life when I was young and my mental health and then
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And thankfully, after that, managed to get treatment and support
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and got out of the addiction and finished my degree
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and then went into politics, worked for a couple of MPs
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and then started campaigning against fixed odds betting terminals
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And that was a campaign that spanned many years,
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but we got that over the line and that was enacted in 2019.
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We campaigned for the maximum stake to be reduced from £100
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pounds down to two pounds a spin and since then I've been pushing for reforms of online gambling
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so a wide spectrum of different policy areas that we're hoping to address but in the middle of all
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of that I was a spokesperson for Jeremy Corbyn between 2016 and 2017. I'm off we'll maybe talk
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about that towards the end because we had a fascinating conversation about it we were
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talking before and francis was telling you that we've we've obviously we've got advertisers that
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advertise on our show um and uh we'd never really had any big issue with advertising various things
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that were being offered but we got an a suggestion of an ad for a gambling company once uh and the
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guys didn't particularly mind but i don't know why i had a really strong feeling that i don't want to
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be advertising this and i don't even necessarily i couldn't formulate why but i just i do think
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there's something about it that you know like when you were when you were addicted and you
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lost all that money how much in the hole were you oh well I was about 20,000 down um by the age of
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20 and it took me quite a few years to to pay it off um and yeah so I mean that's the thing it has
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quite significant long-term medium-term long-term consequences as well like you can stop gambling
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but then you have all of the you're trying to pay back all the debts and you're trying to repair all
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the damage that is caused and that can take a number of years as well so yeah look i think
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your instincts are probably right like i think what people don't aren't really aware of is
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that the the business model is very much uh trying to extract as much as possible
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from the people that become addicted so um for example between 60 and 80 percent of the profits
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for online gambling are coming from the five percent of people that are either
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problem or at risk gamblers so the the vast majority of the revenues are coming from people
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who are losing more than they can afford so when you've got a business model like that
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your core customer base that's driving the majority of your revenue is constantly going broke
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so you need to replace it so this is where the huge spend on advertising comes in and it's not
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just advertising on podcasts and tv and you know digital ads it's also affiliate marketing there's
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some affiliates that will get between 50 and 75 percent of someone's losses if they get someone
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to sign up to a gambling site through them so they didn't offer us that deal if they did we
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definitely would have taken i mean that would be very tempting i can imagine yeah yeah so i mean
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that's the thing is a constant like clamor for player acquisition you need new they need new
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people all the time yeah because they're they're customer base that you know the average um account
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lasts a year so a customer will have an account on average for a year and in that time they will
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either get addicted and lose all the money they have access to or they just get bored and there's
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very few people in between um there are people in between of course and there'll be people watching
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this who will bet occasionally but it's not those people that bet every now and again infrequently
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that are driving the majority of the revenue it's not you know that's not the reason that we have
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10 premier league teams sponsored by gambling companies you know that it's the people that
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are losing life-altering sums of money unfortunately Matt and how do you know this
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where do where do these stats come from because what you've just said is is horrific because
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essentially they found a way to monetize addiction they have yeah I mean so there's various different
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studies that the 60 percent from five percent comes from the the house of lords gambling industry
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select committee and there was an estimate recently from natsen and gamble aware which
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i think it was 86 percent coming from five percent uh 86 percent of the profits coming for the five
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percent of the customers so lots of different estimates based on different data that we have
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access to different researchers have access to but the overwhelming picture is that you have a
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business model effectively that relies on people losing more than they can afford a sub a subset
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of the customer base and in that context it's not in their commercial interest to reduce harm
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if they reduce harm they're going to reduce their profits and that means you know that means that
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they're going to have to stand up in front of their shareholders and say this next quarter we're
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going to reduce addiction and we're going to reduce profits as a result it's just not viable
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it's not it's not possible for them to do it through self-regulation so this is why we push
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the regulations is i think it's a market that does need regulation otherwise you just end up with
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the vendor extracting as much as they can from the consumer in that kind of antagonistic
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relationship and why why are you not pushing for complete prohibition i don't think prohibition
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works i think you it's better to have a legal and regulated market um but properly regulated
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the problem we have is we have a legal market but it isn't properly regulated
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it's a bit like if and and i think there are some analogies with drug policy but it's a bit like if
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we were to legalize drugs which i would be very sympathetic towards and decided to instead of
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you know regulating supply and regulating consumption um we just decided to liberalize
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the market completely and allow suppliers to advertise on tv and had no limits to what you
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could purchase and you know didn't invest properly in treatment that's another problem that we have
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as well with gambling so all of these things you think well all the benefits of having something
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that's regulated uh legalized and regulated properly are being missed in gambling because
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we're just not we're just not applying proper regulation to it matt is there no there must be
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a body that regulates the gambling industry there is the gambling commission and the gambling
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commission was conceived of in the early 2000s and and was formed after the 2005 gambling act
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it took the gambling commission seven years to start licensing online gambling so that was
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basically a wild west for seven years when from 2007 when the gambling commission was formed to
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2014 and ever since then it's been playing catch up so effectively you've had you've had these
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online gambling operators that all went offshore to tax havens so they're not paying corporation
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tax built their businesses up with in low tax low regulation jurisdictions and were able to sell
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gambling their services to the british market without any oversight for so long and as i say
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the gambling commission ever since has been playing catch-up but the problem is the legislation the
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gambling act is it's not really geared towards regulating online gambling it's mainly um focused
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on venue-based gambling which is what we had in the early 2000s internet gambling was very
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very primitive at that point so i think yeah that's one of the things we're trying to do is
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just bring that legislation into the 21st century and uh from from the point of view of the sort of
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addiction itself most people i think watching this will have had the experience of smoking or
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drinking a bit too much or taking drugs or whatever addictions that people have. I think
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almost everyone can relate to the process of being addicted to something in one way or another.
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Is gambling similar or is it a different thing entirely?
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Gambling is very neurologically similar, gambling addiction, to cocaine addiction. So there's been
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various studies on how it affects the brain. Now, it's difficult for people to comprehend,
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I accept because it isn't a substance and you think how do you get addicted to something that
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isn't a substance how is it having that effect on those neurological pathways in the same way
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cocaine does but it's a physiological addiction and I think that when you're looking at something
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like gambling addiction for a long time it's suited the gambling industry to propagate an
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argument that and this fits in with the kind of responsible gambling paradigm where like if people
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get addicted it's because they've got something wrong with them like they're they're faulty
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individuals and you know we need to just look after this very small percentage of people that
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for some reason get addicted to gambling and that's not really evidence an evidence-based
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perspective and the reality is that you have particular gambling products that are much more
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associated with gambling addiction than others so for example online slots 45 percent of people
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that engage with online slots are either problem or at risk gamblers so you know compare that
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fixed odds betting terminals was around 50%. What's a fixed odds betting terminal Matt just
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for clarification? Yeah so that's a machine in a betting shop where you can bet you used to be
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able to bet up to 100 pounds every 20 seconds on roulette and slots and yeah and we reduced that
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to two pounds a spin in 2019 so that was obviously a very welcome change but I think the yeah
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I think the understanding that gambling products can have a role in inducing or exacerbating
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gambling harm, that was recognized with that policy change.
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And I think that now needs to be applied to different products online.
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At the moment, there's no limits to the stakes on online slots, for example.
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So the amount people can lose is limitless and it can happen very quickly.
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and unlike with other addictions as you mentioned it's so easy to keep gambling addiction a secret
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there's no physical signs or no obvious physical signs people can feel as though that by gambling
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they can win their way out of trouble they can actually solve the problems their addiction has
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caused by carrying on with the thing they're addicted to which is quite I think unique
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compared to drinking or drugs so yeah i mean it's incredibly dangerous for many reasons and
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the the harms extend beyond the individual very often it's families that will will you know bear
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the brunt of of someone's gambling and workplaces and communities if people steal from work to fund
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their addiction so there's a huge knock-on effect and at the middle of it you've got a sector which
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is kind of reaping the rewards at the expense of everyone else while being based in primarily
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based in tax havens and you think well this is an obvious kind of area for that needs regulation
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yeah and one of the questions I was going to ask is I think I've been in the casino I think twice
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in my life and I found it quite a scary experience in some way because I remember I had this chip in
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my hand, uh, that was worth a hundred quid or 200 quid. It did not feel like what I was placing
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on the table was a hundred pounds worth because a hundred pounds is a lot of money, particularly
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in that moment, it was a lot of money to me, but it just, it changed the experience. And I imagine
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gambling online does that even more. It doesn't feel like real money. People often say that about
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credit cards. When they spend money on a credit card, it doesn't feel like real money. Is that
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part of of the process where there's a kind of disassociation from reality of how much money
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you're playing with and gambling away yeah absolutely the disassociation is very much a
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part of it um and yeah online obviously there's the propensity to have repeat deposits you can
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deposit money into an online gambling account there's no real checks you can just keep depositing
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as much as you can as much as you want to um and before you know it you've lost all your money
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because you've been in that cycle of loss chasing.
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And the only place you could play it was Monte Carlo
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that it was an addictive game, an addictive product.
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and of course you know it's better to have access to roulette and allow it to be played in a legal
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and regulated environment um for people that want to play it but the idea that this should be on
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every device that everyone walks around with and there shouldn't be any limits to the amount people
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can gamble um and no stake limits and no real checks uh it's a dangerous experiment and i think
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that unfortunately, you know, we're starting to see the results of it.
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And Matt, how do you know if you're developing an addiction to gambling?
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Because I think most people would know by looking at someone
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I think, I mean, if you're looking for signs in others,
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I think if someone you know is like never seems to have any money
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i think that that's a that's a sign like but you really do have to read between the lines it's so
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easy i mean i say it's easy i i've been remember being in that position myself where i was became
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very good at lying because i'm trying to conceal it and you do it because you think you're protecting
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other people in a way like you think i don't want people to worry about me so i will you know keep
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this to myself um but really you know the you need help and i think recognizing that if you're
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in that cycle of loss chasing if you're gambling is becoming a preoccupation and you're constantly
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thinking about your next bet that's when it's starting to become an addiction and you know i
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think at that point it's like good to kind of reflect on that and seek help if you if you need
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to and you want to because there is help available uh and you can get out of it and it's better to
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do it early as well i mean the problem at the moment with the regulations is it is it's still
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a bit of a wild west so you that that it's like exponential curve addiction gambling addiction
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you start gambling maybe sporadically then you'll start getting really into it and then you'll be
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gambling more than you thought you would ever start gambling uh and then before you know it
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you have a session or two where you've lost way more than you had planned to or can afford to
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and then you're chasing losses and then you've cleaned out your bank account and you think how
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the hell did that happen so it can happen very quickly and it's a bit like if you start
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if you start drinking if you start having a few pints when you're in the middle of that drinking
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session you your judgment is obviously different to before you started and it's the same with
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gambling once you start gambling when you're in that gambling session it does affect your decision
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making so yeah this is why i think you know it's it's a really good idea to have proper limits
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before you start and do they does gambling tend to come with other addictions like do people tend
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to develop a gambling addiction plus alcoholism or does it live most often on its own there are
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comorbidities but i think that i mean there are plenty of examples of people that get addicted
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to just gambling and uh yeah i think that um one might lead to the other in certain circumstances
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but yeah i think that gambling addiction ought to be treated separately to to other addictions it's
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not this this person is an addict you know there is different things are happening in the brain
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with different addictions when you were comparing it to cocaine isn't it more similar to compare it
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to pornography addiction in a way i'm not sure i don't know much about it pornography addiction
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but i think you were speaking neurologically when you were talking about cocaine yeah yeah
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yeah i mean quite possibly quite quite possibly um it but yeah neurologically that's it that
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it was that research on the parallels with cocaine addiction that shifted there's something
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called the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders dsm and from dsm4 to dsm5 it
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moved gambling from an impulse control disorder which i think is where pornography sits still
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to uh an addiction on the par with drugs and alcohol when we had david nutt on the show to
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talk about we francis was asking about what predisposes people to alcoholism one of the
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things she said is there's clearly a genetic component or potentially a genetic component
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because one of the strongest predictors particularly for men of being addicted to alcohol is a father
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who's an alcoholic uh is there been any research on what might predispose someone to being addicted
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to gambling yeah i think there are factors certainly um i mean the genetic question is
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interesting i think that that could also be behavioral conditioning it could be that you're
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taking cues from that parent sure if they yeah there's lots of examples of of parents taking
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their children to the races when they're young you know and they have that good experience and
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that stays with them and um and that can manifest itself in different ways as you get older but
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there has definitely been a lot of research into into that i think it's difficult to determine
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um my from my perspective like yes there may be you may be more vulnerable to gambling addiction
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if you have a pre-existing mental health condition you know if you have anxiety or if you have other
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mental health problems um but the thing that we can actually control is the regulation of gambling
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so that's always been my focus i mean we can't do much about people's genetic predispositions
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but what we can do is regulate the industry and if there are particular products that are
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associated with gambling harm then you know it's best to focus on those so if you were going to
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introduce regulation what would you actually do matt so there's a few things i'd do i mean
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as i mentioned before the um the gambling legislation at the moment was conceived of
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at a time before kind of internet gambling really took off and in that legislation there are
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provisions to regulate stakes and prizes on machines and that's one of the things that
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we changed with fixed odds betting terminals from 100 pounds down to two pounds of spin
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and i think that this there's going to be similar controls on the same content online so slots for
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example there needs to be a limit on two pounds of spin as there is on easily accessible machines
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in different gambling venues and i think as well as that i'd like to see restrictions on advertising
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around football i mean i think there's an argument to end all gambling advertising
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of the industry in its current form given the way it's currently constituted
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but I can see that why people would argue for kind of carve outs for racing on tv when you know
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that televised racing kind of depends on gambling ads I would put more money into treatment and
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research independent research um through a levy on the industry I'd like to see an ombudsman at
00:21:32.340
the moment if you get um i mean this is it's astonishing really this is allowed to to happen
00:21:38.280
but if you're not paid out by a gambling operator or you're treated particularly unfairly there's no
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consumer ombudsman so they can just take your money and that's it um and on very many occasions
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they've done this they've also uh been able to because of use of big data and how that's kind
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of permeated into bookmaking and the operation of gambling uh commercial gambling they're able
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to kind of predict whether you are going to be a winning gambler so on products like slots and
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roulette mathematically impossible to win in the long term but in theory you could win in the longer
00:22:16.880
term playing betting on racing or football if you had an edge over the bookmaker or i don't know
00:22:23.040
table tennis or something but if if they're able to they're able to predict that within
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quite frightening accuracy based on your betting patterns initially how much you're going to win
00:22:33.620
or lose over a 12-month period and if you're not going to be profitable to them then they will
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restrict your account or close your account and they're allowed to do that and there are
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very many examples of people who haven't even been making a huge amount of money
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whose bets get restricted down to 10p 20p just because they're going to win so what people need
00:22:55.660
to be aware of is you can't win and there is no provision or mechanism for consumer redress
00:23:02.040
so if you want to complain to someone you can complain to the gambling commission
00:23:05.760
and they might take enforcement action if there's a breach of the license conditions but
00:23:10.480
they're not going to advocate on your behalf so this is why we need like a gambling ombudsman
00:23:14.980
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And let's explore some of the counter arguments a little bit because we haven't done that yet.
00:24:53.560
So one of the things people might say is, well, I agree with you.
00:24:58.780
Gambling is designed in a way that you can't win, right, over the long term.
00:25:02.340
But people might say it's the same reason why people buy lottery tickets.
00:25:06.180
They're not actually buying a lottery ticket because they think, statistically speaking, this is the best investment of money to grow their portfolio.
00:25:15.120
It's because they enjoy the experience of thinking they might win.
00:25:21.320
You're buying the emotional experience of, oh, I could win.
00:25:25.220
um so isn't isn't that quite a reasonable thing for people to pay for that experience if you like
00:25:32.540
yeah i think this is i completely agree i don't i wouldn't even say that was necessarily a
00:25:37.400
counter argument to what i'm trying to say is it's actually that's true and it is i think it is
00:25:42.840
for many people a form of entertainment yeah and it is a legitimate form of entertainment
00:25:47.200
the problems start when that form of entertainment starts costing people their rent money and starts
00:25:56.680
costing families you know christmas presents and you know all sorts of knock-on effects from
00:26:02.400
gambling that is supposed to be entertainment and you know the gambling industry has been
00:26:07.940
quite resistant to the idea of affordability checks for people who are losing you know
00:26:13.400
significant sums of money but if it is an entertainment product if it is something like
00:26:20.280
equivalent to going to the cinema or you know whatever people do for fun these days i don't
00:26:26.900
know i don't really have much fun you can tell you used to work for jeremy corbin
00:26:31.720
um yeah then you know the the kind of money that's spent on it should arguably be in that
00:26:40.840
kind of ballpark yeah you can't lose 20 grand at the cinema i get it what about um you know the
00:26:46.540
the inevitable comparison with alcohol or whatever like this point the 80 20 rule which is 20 the
00:26:52.660
customers provide 80 of the profits that's how it is in almost every business it'll be the same
00:26:57.240
with trigonometry 20 or probably far fewer than 20 of our viewership will send 80 of the of the
00:27:03.260
money that we use to fund the show right so um in terms of that isn't that the case with everything
00:27:11.520
with alcohol like the people who who provide a lot of the profits for alcohol businesses would
00:27:18.200
be people who drink a lot inevitably right so that's kind of the case everywhere yeah i think
00:27:24.820
80 20 would be an improvement on the current status quo with gambling i mean it's it's about
00:27:49.760
And what would you think about the argument Matt
00:27:53.000
which is a more dare I say libertarian argument
00:27:58.820
if people want to do that then they're going to do that you know we live in a free society people
00:28:06.180
are going to make stupid choices stupid decisions and that's their responsibility as an adult to do
00:28:11.140
that yeah i think that there is i mean like personally speaking i do take responsibility
00:28:17.760
had to for my recovery and and like no one's going to recover from my gambling addiction for me
00:28:23.100
um so yeah obviously there is there is that there is that element but i think that we don't talk
00:28:30.400
about is the responsibility of of like the gambling industry and the responsibility of
00:28:34.760
other actors in society like the government and the regulator is it fit for purpose is it doing
00:28:39.320
its job properly and from my perspective they're not being responsible and yeah individual
00:28:47.100
responsibility can only take you so far i also think like the because you get this free market
00:28:51.620
argument as well which is kind of linked to that libertarian argument and i do think that gambling
00:28:58.200
is quite unique in that it does cut across some of the logic of the market because in other sectors
00:29:05.940
of the economy it is in the interest of the vendor or you know the the sector itself providing the
00:29:11.760
service to do so in a way that the consumer um likes and wants to you know return to uh to do
00:29:20.000
so a cost that's, you know, palatable to the individual. But in gambling, there is an antagonism
00:29:26.640
between the consumer and the vendor. The vendor wants to screw the consumer, right? So in that
00:29:33.140
context, the market doesn't work. The market logic doesn't really apply. I think that's why when we
00:29:38.840
started the conversation, that was my hesitation about gambling because I feel, and look, I haven't
00:29:44.780
explored this argument in nearly enough detail to be able to say this is my opinion, but instinctively
00:29:49.600
my feeling was this is a uniquely exploitative industry which really wants to extract all the
00:29:58.120
profit it can from individuals and there's absolutely no intention for that to be a long-term
00:30:02.560
relationship of any kind even a drug dealer wants you to keep coming back whereas from based on what
00:30:08.640
you're saying is it's more like let's get all your money get you bankrupt and then we'll get
00:30:11.980
another someone else yeah but here's another counter argument that i always think about
00:30:15.940
because I definitely have a very addictive personality.
00:30:19.340
And the way I've learned to regulate that for me
00:30:22.340
is I just force myself to get addicted to good things, right?
00:30:45.060
And I did go quite far in terms of, you know, undermining my relationships and stuff.
00:30:49.460
But still, my point is, I feel that no, and I've done lots of personal development and
00:30:58.660
I don't believe that I will never be, I will, I will ever get to a point where I don't find
00:31:05.540
And so I've always thought that like addiction quite often, you can, you can deal with someone
00:31:13.440
but if gambling wasn't available to them they'd probably find something else do you see what i'm
00:31:18.800
saying is that a fair argument i know what you mean and and someone who's become addicted to
00:31:23.420
gambling they may replace it with something else right but but it's it's that void that you replace
00:31:30.420
that you're filling that void with something that you hope would be more productive and more
00:31:36.160
rewarding for that individual i mean gambling is not a rewarding endeavor and the time spent on
00:31:40.820
gambling uh particularly if you're addicted to it um you know it's it's you don't get that time
00:31:47.260
back and that's one of the things that everyone who have known who has been addicted to gambling
00:31:51.820
has lamented more than money that they've lost is you know the the fact that they've because of
00:31:56.420
their because of their addiction that they have have lost the time they've not been they've not
00:32:01.200
been present and i think that you here now you're very present you're very present in the in what
00:32:07.520
you're doing and and obviously you've developed this podcast and you've obviously achieved a lot
00:32:12.300
and that's because of your focus and what gambling does is it strips you of that and it's a very
00:32:18.260
different type of you're immersed in it in a very different way to work and i say that as someone
00:32:23.560
who is equally as obsessed with my work yeah yeah yeah the reason i'm asking this question it came
00:32:28.280
out very muddled and that's because you're the first person we've really spoken about this so
00:32:31.740
i haven't thought these arguments through very much but i guess what i'm saying is i i there's
00:32:36.740
a part of me that sort of cringes a little bit when when we talk about personal responsibility
00:32:41.460
and we're like no no it's it's the industry that needs to because to me at the end of the day
00:32:46.240
there will always be something that you as an individual can be addicted to exploited by etc
00:32:52.200
and until we all start to go well what can i do about this there's always going to be something
00:32:58.920
out there and if it's okay maybe you can regulate gambling people will get addicted to other things
00:33:04.840
that exist out there computer games porn drugs whatever um so that was that was the reason i'm
00:33:10.820
asking the question i feel like yeah i do feel like there's more as an individual that you can
00:33:15.700
do um and i think forgive me for saying this uh on the left particularly and i'm someone who has
00:33:22.140
views from all over the political spectrum there's not enough of you need to take responsibility for
00:33:29.000
yourself and there's too much of the system is to blame and i'm hearing a little bit of that and
00:33:37.440
I think that there is always a role for personal responsibility.
00:33:42.280
And people, yeah, people who are addicted to gambling
00:33:51.380
You know, hearing me say, well, the industry is not properly regulated
00:33:55.400
and, you know, the harm that they've experienced
00:34:00.280
is not going to help them in this particular moment.
00:34:02.180
what might help them is reaching out to the national gambling helpline to the nhs clinics
00:34:09.420
for problem gambling to gamstop to gamban which is blocking software i co-founded if you don't
00:34:16.260
mind plugging it gamban.com um that might help them in that moment and yes they do have to take
00:34:23.780
responsibility for their recovery no one is going to do that for them but i think if we're going to
00:34:28.140
try to reduce gambling addiction I'm not talking about all addictions but gambling addiction and
00:34:33.720
gambling harm and the harm that it causes then there are I believe things we can do in terms
00:34:38.940
of regulation and that's not me saying there's no role for individual responsibility or blaming it
00:34:44.440
all on the industry I'm just sort of saying what are the things practical things we can do and I
00:34:49.320
believe that these are the things we can do you know what I'm a big football fan uh I was gonna
00:34:54.080
to say it like you are but you're an Arsenal fan so you don't really like football sorry I'll get
00:34:57.300
that dig in immediately but I tend to be quite libertarian I think over lockdown I've become
00:35:04.360
even more libertarian with these demented policies that have been brought in and I but I watch the
00:35:09.400
football thanks for keeping the neutral there man it's what it's what it's what we do here
00:35:14.560
and but I watch the football and I'm watching West Ham and then during the interval I just
00:35:19.460
get bombarded with gambling advert after gambling advert after gambling advert and being someone who
00:35:24.720
used to teach and teach you know kids of 10 and 11 and also in secondary school kids love football
00:35:30.920
particularly boys aren't we just indoctrinating them when they're seeing their you know their
00:35:36.260
favorite football team sponsored by gambling adverts when they're watching the football and
00:35:40.580
it's gambling advert after gambling advert ray winston coming out isn't this quite the word
00:35:47.480
big fan of your work right yeah yeah uh not immoral but i do believe that it's almost
00:35:54.160
indoctrinating them isn't it yeah there's a conditioning element to it and there was
00:35:57.620
research in australia that found you know kids as young as six who had quite significant
00:36:02.760
recollection of gambling brands and how to place a bet and what odds meant lots of children growing
00:36:07.800
up now there's other research that shows that they think that placing a bet is part of supporting a
00:36:12.760
team so yes we're storing up i think some problems or challenges for the future with children growing
00:36:18.620
up in this environment because it is it's the first generation to do so so yeah i think that
00:36:24.200
isn't that is an issue i mean i think it's more of an issue given how the industry is currently
00:36:28.120
constituted because you think well what's the problem with kids growing up with you know being
00:36:32.420
bombarded with gambling apps and all that sort of stuff and the problem is that when they turn 18
00:36:38.000
and they are able to download these apps and deposit money is that they are at that most their
00:36:41.880
most vulnerable point uh particularly young men the more young men are um addicted to gambling
00:36:48.620
between the ages of 18 to 24 than any other demographics so so it's that it's the fact
00:36:54.320
that the industry is constituted in such a way that wants the it needs people to get addicted
00:36:59.740
and you have a very vulnerable demographic who has a rite of passage almost in the same way that
00:37:04.800
perhaps when we turned 18 we went to the pub and had our first legal pint um they're downloading
00:37:11.700
all the gambling apps so i mean that's not something that i even experienced i was gambling
00:37:15.440
on the machines obviously i was already addicted by 18 but i didn't have a smartphone that didn't
00:37:19.960
exist then so like yeah it's it's it's just it's difficult to know what the impact's going to be
00:37:26.360
but the the signs are that it's having a quite a significant negative impact and the lockdown
00:37:31.340
can't have helped either that must have seen problem gambling going through the roof because
00:37:35.320
people sat at home all day you know access to these apps i mean that must have seen profits
00:37:40.800
spike for the gambling companies yeah it did um they had record profits during lockdowns and
00:37:47.680
um like for example online slots increased by 30 during the first lockdown so substantial
00:37:54.540
increases and yeah profits increased despite the cancellation of sports fixtures in lockdown one
00:38:00.540
so like just shows like the shift to the more kind of addictive products and yeah i mean it did have
00:38:07.080
a profound effect and it's accelerated the switch from venue-based gambling to online gambling which
00:38:13.780
is why I think the government's review which is ongoing at the moment and we're expecting hopefully
00:38:18.140
the white paper to be published in April it's why it's kind of so important that the focus on
00:38:24.460
online gambling regulation. I'm curious because now the gambling culture exists in Russia not
00:38:31.800
nearly in the same way that but it when I was growing up in the Soviet Union it wasn't really
00:38:35.820
a thing that people did but in this country as a for as an outsider i can see it's a huge part of
00:38:41.620
the culture right you go to the game you have a little cheeky bet you go to the races you have a
00:38:46.800
bet like it's part of it's been around i'm guessing for for centuries do you do you have any insight
00:38:53.040
into as to why that is why this culture particularly is has that embedded in it so strongly you mean
00:39:00.540
like the link between sporting events but just a bet in general is something that is not the same
00:39:06.280
in other countries you know yeah it's interesting i i don't know what the origins are um but yeah
00:39:12.800
there's definitely something that's it's always been part of you know the experience the match
00:39:17.160
day experience you know or obviously guys at racing wouldn't racing and betting coexist you
00:39:21.760
know the mutually you couldn't have one without the other so it's always been a part of our
00:39:26.660
culture has always been a part of of that experience but you know i'm not saying that
00:39:32.080
that shouldn't be the case you just want to regulate it that that's it and and you know it's
00:39:37.340
i think it's there's a spectrum of prohibition which obviously i'm not in favor of
00:39:44.080
uh promotion and liberalization and tolerating something and you know returning to this
00:39:53.340
principle of unstimulated demand it's saying that if people want to do it they're going to do it
00:39:57.500
they should do it in a regulated and safe environment but should we be encouraging it
00:40:02.940
or promoting it to the extent that we are i'm not saying that necessarily that's shouldn't be
00:40:07.120
permitted you know at racetracks or whatever but there's just a conversation i think a grown-up
00:40:11.660
conversation to be had about like where it sits between these two between like unstimulated demand
00:40:18.000
and promotion and uh yeah i mean reformers gambling reformers like me constantly often
00:40:25.560
caricatured in some ways like prohibitionist because we want to have more regulation and i
00:40:30.660
think that that kind of is unhelpful because i think really that that's where the debate is
00:40:35.860
being had and that's thankfully what the debate the government's kind of willing to have as well
00:40:40.380
well we really appreciate you coming on thank you so much for that it's been a great chat uh tell
00:40:46.440
everybody uh where they can go if they if they've got an issue with gambling if they want to support
00:40:51.160
the work that you are doing etc yeah great if you've got an issue with gambling go to talk
00:40:55.520
bandstop.com and there's uh lots of information on there and free advice and support and you can
00:41:01.880
get gamban for free through talkbandstop.com um and if you're interested in the gambling reform
00:41:08.900
work that i'm doing then cleanupgambling.com and there's stuff on there about what we're
00:41:14.360
campaigning for and there's a template letter to mps and all that sort of stuff so if you want to
00:41:18.520
get involved that'd be great and yeah by all means get in touch i'm happy to hear from anyone all
00:41:22.840
right fantastic thank you so much uh guys thank you so much for watching and listening well we're
00:41:27.040
going to ask matt a couple of very special questions from you for our locals only but in
00:41:31.440
the meantime we will see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one or raw show all of
00:41:36.820
them go out at 7 p.m uk time and for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go it's also
00:41:40.920
available as a podcast take care and see you soon guys people on the left are like why you
00:41:47.620
still remember the load party why you still why would you vote for the load party the reason i