According to a latest report, financial losses by addicts have been laid bare, and brought into the public domain for the first time. Our “High Streets” are over populated with betting shops, once famous for horse and dog racing but now one can bet on any event, sporting, political or social. Gambling has become sophisticated, internationalised and so often controlled by overseas Mafia who may use personal information to their advantage.
Online betting where one can participate from the comfort of one’s home is spreading like wild fire, trapping the old, infirm and bored OAPs, living on their own, and are unable to go out. We all receive tempting offers to open accounts with first few bets free or certain amount deposited into our accounts as opening bribe, providing financial details including bank accounts and credit card information. It may start with mild flirtation but one is soon addicted to a frenzy of speculation with increasing frequency.
The worse financial meltdown is created by so called “Fixed-odds Betting Terminals” (FOBTs) where punters can bet £100 every twenty seconds. There are 35,000 such machines where punters have lost some 1:8 billion in a year.
Although Councils try to hold back permissions to open “Betting Shops” on high streets, the Gaming Industry is on the high and no political party has openly pledged to control these evil industries that ruins families, even make them homeless and on rare occasions youngsters commit suicide if involved in spread betting.
Kumudini Valambia
Via Emai
