She is the unlucky minister who gets the job of defending the governments stance on gambling which consists of licensing 90 new casinos in the last two years, with 10 supercasinos in the pipeline, according to a recently leaked document.

There are certain arguments in favour of liberalising gambling. While it is certainly addictive (Mark Griffiths, Professor of Gambling Studies at Nottingham Trent University, suggests just under 1% of adults develop a problem ), so are alcohol and tobacco - what is legal and what is not is not usually decided by any rational argument but by the whim of popular opinion. In addition, Gordon Brown is probably salivating at the thought of all the extra tax revenue (apologies if that is an unsavoury image) - the government isn’t giving this a reason for the boom in gambling licences but they would probably do better to be honest and admit it, and avoid the accusations of spin. Finally, by banning gambling or curtailing it, potential gambling revenue would go offshore - the US was canny in its decision to ban internet gambling, and thus keep the money in the country. The Gambling Act does try to protect more vulnerable members of society such as young people, who are more likely to become addicted (according to Mark Griffiths, above). How well these provisions will work in practice remains to be seen.

Despite the liberal capitalist argument above, I don’t think many people would be particularly excited about the possibility of having a casino in their town. Nearly 1% of adults (and that’s including those who never gamble) developing a problem with it sounds like quite a lot to me. Then who will wipe up the mess afterwards? Nanny state isn’t looking too enthusiastic about the job with funds currently standing at £10 per problem gambler per year - not even enough to drown their sorrows. The NHS currently has little provision to treat problem gamblers, who are not helped by society’s propensity to see their addiction as a personal failing rather than a social problem.

Although this is an instinctive argument which may owe its roots to my Protestant upbringing (however, I’ve managed to overcome that disadvantage in regard to other prohibited activities), I wonder if, unlike alcohol and tobacco, this distaste is shared by wider British society - yes, that’s you - and a flame in the hearth of Britishness might be ignited around this issue. Give me your thoughts, my venerated readers.

Filed under: gambling, labour, society on January 28th, 2007