Gambling our lives away

The other evening, I was sat in front of my TV watching an hour-long pre-watershed programme on Channel 4. As I relaxed with my cup of tea, the first batch of adverts slapped me around the face – I suddenly became aware of how heavily biased these five-minute segments are towards gambling.

In total, 16 adverts were shown during the 60 minutes. All of them carried the obligatory ‘health and wealth’ warning. Nonetheless, I was shocked at the sheer volume of gambling propaganda being peddled on the airwaves.

Since the weekend, I have consciously watched C4 on several occasions – live and on its virtual player. And I was shocked to discover gambling appears to be the channel’s single biggest form of advertising (followed by ads promising miracle solutions for erectile dysfunction).

For while it is an ‘independent’ broadcaster, C4 is owned by the state.

For me, someone who once held a very short-lived senior management position with one of Britain’s biggest gambling companies, the fact gambling has such a huge presence on our TV screens is a huge worry.

When I worked for Britain’s third-largest gambling company – and held a post that was ranked within the 40 most senior positions within it – I was privy to a lot of sensitive, inside information about what 'drives' the gambling industry. And my short flirtation with it will hopefully demonstrate that what I discovered wasn’t to my liking.

In truth, gambling companies want to suck every penny they can out of their customers, knowing that many are earning the minimum wage or are on state benefits. Regardless of the gloss, they seek to wrap this seedy, tawdry industry in, they continue to be leaches.

Do they care if they leave someone bankrupt? The answer is ‘yes’ on occasion – and ‘no’ more often than not.

They are most certainly concerned if they get caught out. When this happens, and someone has had their life ruined, the company concerned will make all sorts of compassionate noises, as well as refunding everything the unfortunate soul has spent with them. But there are many who don’t complain and have no recourse to compensation; it’s these people the gambling companies continue to prey upon, and the regulators do little to protect.

I can clearly recall sitting on meetings with the chief executive and the managing director of the company’s various divisions and remember hearing them talk about how they could raise what is known as “the spend per head”.

In the case of all gambling companies, footfall in their high street shops had taken a big hit before Covid struck. In the midst of the pandemic, their profits must have been totally wiped out.

Thankfully (I say that a bit ‘tongue in cheek’), they have their Internet offering to put before our eyes – via the likes of CF, ITV, Sky and a host of other cash-hungry broadcasters – so it’s little wonder the airwaves are now packed with these dangerous and misleading ads.

That it has reached saturation coverage – and many leading football clubs have taken the gambling industry’s 30 pieces of silver and are proactively promoting their wares – should be a cause for concern for all of us.

That it is not tells us a lot about the society we live in today.

Tony Yorke is deputy editor of Sorted.