As a liberal I have some rather quaint ideas, one of which is that I generally don’t like the state banning things, because generations of governments have shown they don’t know better than the people, but I make an exception for Fixed Odds Betting Terminals.
The hard wall of my instinctive view has been destroyed by the cold reason of my personal experience, the very process that powered liberal progressiveness for generations.
I began a new, and comfortably the most prestigious, job of my life in July 2017, it was akin to being flung into a scalding vat of water such was the pressure.
My way of dealing with it was, at the end of the day, to adjourn to a betting shop between my workplace and the train station, where I bet tiny sums on the outcomes of horse races.
The amount I have bet in the last nine months is comfortably less than I have spent on being a member of the Liberal Democrats in that time, and I win more often.
But while those of us betting on horses have an easy after work camaraderie, a dull intensity pierces the betting shop in the form of those huddled over the terminals, feeding wads of cash into the machines, convinced they have cracked the game of chance
.
If I or another of the horse players lose, there is a brief moment of cursing the horse, the jockey, and the grass they ran on, before returning to the normal optimism of the next race.
But if a player on one of the terminal machines loses, the swearing and angst is akin to what I feel when I see the Lib Dems poll rating.
This creates an unpleasant atmosphere for those of us engaged in the passing of an after work hour in the diversion of our hobby, and occasionally putting staff in physical danger.
My understanding is that every Lib Dem leader is presented with a copy of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty. Within that book is the Harm Principle. Those us betting on horses or dogs are harming none but possibly ourselves, those who use the terminals are harming others, and themselves.
I cannot offer much explanation as to why the reaction of the terminal punters is so different, but I know enough not to like it. If banned they may find another form of self destruction, but at the moment they are a nuisance to the law abiding, the machines’ addictive qualities are not healthy, and should be banned.
I never thought I would have to urge this incarnation of the Liberal Democrats to ban something, but then, I always did like a long shot.
* David Thorpe was the Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for East Ham in the 2015 General Election
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13 Comments
@ David Thorpe “Those us betting on horses or dogs are harming none but possibly ourselves”. Seriously ? You’ve got to be kidding.
“Number of problem gamblers in the UK rises to more than 400,000. Gambling Commission report finds more than 2 million people are addicted to gambling or at risk of developing a problem”. The Guardian 24 August, 2017.
“the bereaved parents taking on the gambling industry – The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/…/ryan-myers-bereaved-parents-taking-on-the-gambling..
15 Jul 2016 – Ryan Myers killed himself after struggling with a gambling addiction. Now, his family are fighting adverts that lure people back in.”
Gambling Related Suicides | Help Stop Gambling UK
https://helpstopgambling.org.uk/category/gambling-related-harm/suicide/
Sadly there are many gamblers who commit suicide over the shame and guilt of building up huge gambling debts or stealing from friends and family. Here we feature stories of gambling related suicides reported in the UK alone.
@David Raw
I agree with you David.
I was surprised when I read the author say betting on horses and dogs is harming nobody but themselves.
Gambling on the trots, dogs, football can be just as addictive and destructive as any other form of gambling.
I see this in my own Brother, successful in his work in a very well paid job earning in excess of 60k a year and has nothing to show for it whatsoever because of his gambling addiction. He is in rented accommodation, has no savings or possessions, he will thinking nothing of putting £100- £200 on a horse each time, same on the football,
He will constantly be tapping my elderly parents up for money (though he does pay it back) but the point is, on his income he should not need to be borrowing.
He will then often go into pits of depression, which leads to more gambling.
It has affected his relationships and his children.
Sadly, I now see his adult children going down the same path.
It saddens me when I see them posting their football accumulator slips or whatever they are called on Facebook.
All forms of gambling can have devastating effects on families and can be detrimental to mental health
I am sorry that this is something you had to learn from experience.
I think the key word here is addiction. If we think rationally then gambling establishments cannot possibly exist if they give out more money than they receive. So on average if you use such a place then you will be a loser.
Consumers rarely think rationally, as the advertising industry understands.
Some argue that such places provide jobs. But if they did not exist the money would circulate round the economy in some other way. And there would be fewer broken marriages and suicides which disrupts the economy in some other way.
Liberals in my opinion should rely less on economic determinism and more on the other social sciences such as psychology and sociology in order to understand people better and develop policies more on evidence rather than ideology. For me personally evidence is an essential part of my ideology.
In that sense I think from your personal experience you have crossed the rubicon.
I think its the party president who is presented with Mill’s ‘On Liberty’. Otherwise I agree with every word of this article.
It is a very long time ago that BF Skinner demonstrated the addictive power of variable reword reinforcement regimes. Gambling can be as powerfully addictive as opiates or nicotine. Addiction enslaves individuals. JS Mill also strongly opposed slavery and explains that an argument for the liberty to deprive oneself of one’s liberty nullifies the basis of its own reasoning.
– On Liberty Chapter V.
A physiological understanding of addiction was not available to Mill, but I think this passage makes clear what his attitude would likely to be,
As a long term gambler who does not suffer from a gambling problem (despite the moralists claiming it’s not possible) I absolutely agree. My gambling flicks between two modes – the bets I put a lot of effort into researching (which I have done in the past, but now finding it more difficult to find proper edges in a maturing industry), and the bets I have for entertainment (watching sport etc). I’m fully aware that the second category is at best break-even – that I’m buying a little bit of interest in a sporting event for entertainment purposes and I will not make money, on average (although I am at least price/probability sensitive).
Anyway the FOBTs are a different category altogether – they are the Wonga.com of betting, deliberately targeting the people with the least ability to delay gratification. With something like a Premier League match the bookmakers will be falling over themselves to compete on price to the point it’s very hard to lose much over the longer term if you simply shop around for best price (like anything, a competitive market reduces margins) – whereas the FOBTs are guaranteed inbuilt high margin, they don’t care about being competitive as the users can’t determine payout values, and won’t walk to another shop – they can just go again and again without restriction until their money is gone.
Restricting the most harmful forms of a vice (whether it be alcohol, drugs or even pornography) from the most vulnerable members of society is a pretty standard incursion into individual liberty in a modern social democracy – the most harmful forms of gambling should not be exempt.
David-any evidence those people are betting or horses, rather than on the machines? of course there are problem gamblers on everything, including no doubt political outcomes, but shop staff in my multi-decade experience, do not feel threatened very often by horse players, but it happens every day with the guys on the machines.
David Thorpe: The typical problem gambler has six to seven outlets for their addiction. The idea that you can draw a neat dividing line between those gambling on horses and those using machines is naive.
Geoffrey Payne: “gambling establishments cannot possibly exist if they give out more money than they receive.” That’s also true of theatres and restaurants. It is a mistake to think that people are gambling in the hope of making money. They gamble for the thrill, and if they end up paying a few quid for a bit of entertainment then they are thinking just as rationally as you are when you buy beer.
More generally, while I can see that there are arguments for banning FOBTs, “These oiks are upsetting my horse-racing friends” is hardly a compelling one.
@David Raw
We often disagree, but not on this issue. Gambling can cause serious problems, not just for the gambler, but for others.
There may be people who can use FOBTs without it becoming a problem, but I think David Thorpe is probably right, that the harm from Fixed Odds Betting Machines is sufficiently serious that they should be banned.
Where I disagree with David Thorpe is if he thinks that there isn’t a problem with other kinds of gambling. While many gamble without problems, that’s not true for many others. The question is, as always, what level of harm justifies banning something.
While the harm principle is correct, it doesn’t get us very far is deciding policy. I think the threshold of harm for banning something should be pretty high, but there’s no objective measure of where that threshold should be.
I wouldn’t want to ban gambling, but I would like measures to reduce the harm it does to people and to society. How far such measures should go, I am open to evidence in other countries.
Of course gambling should not be banned, however, I think companies should be restricted in how they contact you and payment methods
Although nothing like the scale of my brother, I have also had issues with gambling in the past, I got into online Gambling Fruit Machines.
Even when I drained available funds in Bank account, I found that some companies would let you fund account via charging it to your Phone Line and even by Direct Debit. It is just made far to easy for Problem Gamblers.
Then there was the constant mailing after joining a site, when I stopped gambling I would get inundated with mail in the post sending me CD’s to reinstall their software with Free Money to reinstall or big Bonuses.
It is quite disgraceful really and no different to a drug addict trying to give up on crack and having someone turn up at you door offering you free trial of a new pipe. It is wrong.
Measures need to be put in place to stop unscrupulous companies targeting vulnerable people.
By All means allow companies to advertise and offer promotions in national media, but they should not be allowed to target individuals in direct mailing, IMO
sorry LDV, I dont know why my name keeps appearing in blue with a link. I keep deleting the field with website info and it keeps putting it back in when ever I come back to an LDV before i notice it has done it. Apologies.
The issue is addiction. Addicts are deprived of their liberty. Upholding addiction is anti-Liberal, it is an expression of Liberalism to oppose addiction. I would like to see a mechanism whereby gambling organisations can be held responsible for gambling debts, where the gambling organisation can be shown to be instrumental in forming the addiction.
@David Thorpe
After reading through your article again,
I have to say, the last impression that I have, is that you are more concerned with these “nuisances” who impact the enjoyment of your “hobby” of betting on horses than you are about any addiction and social consequences that they might have.
“This creates an unpleasant atmosphere for those of us engaged in the passing of an after work hour in the diversion of our hobby”
and
“If banned they may find another form of self destruction, but at the moment they are a nuisance to the law abiding”
I am surprised that your priority for banning these machines appears to be so that other gamblers of a more socially acceptable nature can continue to do so with out these “annoyances” from less desirable sorts