Welcome to Gambling Watch Global Community Blog,
a source for latest news, developments and reputable documentation and research on gambling. You'll find many helpful resources and links for anti-gambling advocates.
6/23/2008: The Tennis racket
Wimbledon fears match-fixing scandal in massive betting scam - The Times
Match-fixers can exploit the odds to share out six-figure sums, leaving significant profits even after paying off a player the loss of prize money for throwing a match. One player has gone on record saying he turned down a £70,000 bung to lose in the first round at Wimbledon. The prize for losing in the first round this year is £10,250.
It is believed Russian and eastern European gamblers are behind much of the illegal betting, although the dossier also names a gang of Austrian gamblers.
An official with detailed knowledge of the dossier of 140 “suspect” matches from tournaments around the world said: “If you look at a tournament, you might see one match for £23,000 [in betting turnover], one for £27,000, one for £36,000 and one for £4.5m. It doesn’t take a genius to work out that something is going on in the last one.”
2/27/2008: UK scraps super casino
The city council of Manchester is thinking about appealing a government decision not to build a Vegas style casino.
Culture Secretary Andy Burnham says:
there was “no consensus” on whether to build a super-casino and said there had been concerns over potential negative impact.
He said there were “important differences” between a super-casino - with 1,250 unlimited stake and jackpot machines - and the 16 approved casinos, which are still considerably larger than current casinos.
Mr Burnham said that the UK would have the “toughest regulatory regime for gambling in the world”.
He said he would introduce a restriction requiring casinos to close their doors for at least six hours a day, a ban on credit card use and outlawing of free drink promotions.
He also promised a statutory levy on casino operators to fund treatment and advice for gambling addiction unless the industry delivers a “substantial increase in contributions” to the current voluntary scheme.
In January last year, east Manchester was the surprise winner - ahead of Blackpool - of a contest to host a huge the super-casino.
But the prime minister announced a review of the decision in July, saying super-casinos were not the best way to regenerate run-down areas.
There are seven large casinos in the UK, plans are going ahead for 16 smaller ones. The plans were scrapped after government studies looked at economic alternatives such as theatres, retail and commercial developments. Casinos often attract out of area workers.
A 2007 Gambling Prevalence Survey found 250 thousand pathological or problem gamblers.
2/12/2008: Clean up your human pollution
The Church of England condemned the Government’s liberalisation of the gambling laws yesterday, blaming it for a tenfold increase in spending on gaming. The Church called for a statutory levy on the industry to pay for education and treatment of gambling addicts.The General Synod, meeting at Church House, Westminster, passed a resolution stating it was “gravely concerned” that expenditure on gaming had risen from £4 billion to £40 billion over four years.
The synod stopped short of calling for a ban, but the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, called on the industry to help to clean up its act. “We expect industries to clean up their pollution,” he said. “The gambling industry is profoundly costly, its human pollution in terms of promoting addiction, destroying family life and so forth, is manifest. The gambling industry needs to take responsibility.” A large number of people in Britain felt “deeply uneasy” about the trends in gambling, he said.
“Gambling is socially costly and whatever is said about supposed financial benefits, the creation of jobs and so forth in an area, one has to build in the cost in terms of all those factors that have been drawn to our attention already this afternoon.”
10/29/2007: UK - Want to stop gambling
A new grass roots effort has been launched in the UK to assist those interested in tackling problem gambling.
From organizer Jake Brindall of Want to Stop Gambling:
Are you fed up with the lack of awareness out there about how gambling really affects people’s lives?
Are you fed up with our respective government’s around the world and the gambling industry getting greedier and greedier and making bigger and bigger profits of the backs of problem gamblers?
Are you fed up with the lies and spin that everyone seems to pump out about how we are the tiny minority and how the problem is not really a significant one?
Shall we continue to let the greed and ignorance of a few continue to blight our communities and our families all around the world?
I propose that us problem gamblers and people whose lives have been turned upside down by gambling need a voice - a voice that can represent them at all levels - a voice that can grow and grow and become so powerful by uniting together that they cannot ignore us anymore - a voice that can affect policy, educate the media, influence the industry and create a better understanding of how gambling works to everyone around the world.
A voice that is not manufactured around its own greedy ego but one that is centred around the facts. And those facts are how gambling has seriously affected us all spiritually, emotionally and financially?
The problem gambler federation is a call to you to help change the status quo - to join the fight against the greedy ignorant captains of the gambling industry who only care about profits and use lies and spin to say that they care about responsible gambling.
Interested?
How it would work?
1. Together we build a huge membership organisation that cannot be ignored.
2. There must be a commitment to fill in a questionaire so that we can conduct our own studies and research - Information that we can use as our weapons in this fight. This can all be done completely anonymously. At the moment we have to rely on studies that are commissioned by the government - and these are the ones who are creating all the problems - I say that they are not best placed to be wearing both hats. There needs to be an alternative.
3. We can provide informed experts with information to back up our case and be ready to present our work to the media, government and the industry and bring about change and raise overall awareness.
How to join?
1. This is a concept that relies on your willing particpation if it is ever going to become a living breathing reality. So if you like what is being said here then send me an email saying ‘Jake - I’m in’
2. That’s it, nothing more until I get enough names and email addresses (say about 1000) which will signify to me that I am not alone in my thoughts. That there is enough of us out there who wants to do something about this problem of lack of awareness and to what is really going on.
3. When we reach 1000 names I will construct a questionairre that will demonstrate how problem gambling severely affects us in every area of our lives. This applies to two sets of people. People who are or have been problem gamblers and those whose lives have been seriously affected by problem gamblers. There must be a committment to fill in this questionairre so we can start to have information that we can use as a tool to raise that awareness.
4. After that I publish the findings on a new website and then we grow. Grow and grow until we become a voice that cannot be ignored.
What do you think?
Are you with me?
9/27/2007: Gamble Aware - UK
Gamble Aware has been added to the link section of Gambling Watch Global.
The UK site provides information on how gambling works, how to get help and recognizing a problem.
Don’t gamble unless you know the facts. Being responsible about gambling means knowing whether to gamble and how much money or time to spend.
No reader comments yet - add yours See related articles: Addiction and Recovery, General, UK 
Administrator8/12/2007: United Kingdom - Gamblers borrow to pay for their habit
1 in 8 gamblers borrow money to gamble, 10% of those use their credit cards.
Around 13% of gamblers are fuelling their habit by borrowing money, while 8% are eating into their savings, according to financial website MoneyExpert.com.
One in three adults say they gamble at least once a month, although the total amount they stake is just £21.37.
But nearly one million people, three-quarters of whom are men, bet between £50 and £150 a month.
Online gambling has increased 44 % say they now play online.
Just over one in 10 people bet informally with friends, 9% have a flutter when they go to a race course and 6% go to a casino to bet.
Sean Gardner, chief executive of MoneyExpert.com, said: “Millions of us enjoy a flutter on the Grand National and play the Lottery every week. But borrowing money to fund a habit like gambling is potentially disastrous - it will inevitably lead you down a dangerous spiral of more and more debt.
“Borrowing when there is by definition a real risk you’ll lose the money is a dangerous game to play - whether you win or lose, your creditors will want their money back.”
No reader comments yet - add yours See related articles: Addiction and Recovery, UK, Wisdom and its absence
Administrator5/31/2007: Female gamblers
Marilyn Lancelot runs a site for women gamblers. Here is a piece of her latest post.
Hello there: I’ve enjoyed talking with you and other women in recovery as their struggles and successes have strengthened my resolve in my daily challenges to remain prayerful as I face my 28 months of incarceration arising out of my gambling addiction to slot machines for 10 years. I have been clean since August 4, 2004 giving all credit to God, Project Turnabout in Granite Falls, (an inpatient gambling treatment program in MN, GA and Gam-Anon. While I’m turning the page to a new chapter in my life, it’s extremely difficult to think of the loss of a six figure income, a public servant as a judge, a law license and the reputation and grief I am causing family, loved ones, and me. I pray that God has plan B in store and that it will involve helping others to achieve sobriety, inner peace, self-love and forgiveness and a closer relationship with one’s higher power in the recovery program. I give all glory to God for helping me because without him/her I would be dead.
Female gamblers is self help site is in three languages, with good links, a reading list and contact email.
No reader comments yet - add yours See related articles: Addiction and Recovery, Crime, General, UK
Administrator5/31/2007: Casino
Why doctors say casinos and betting is bad for you.
5/19/2007: Putting the fox back in the henhouse - West Virginia
The operator of a national hotline that fields most of the calls to West Virginia’s Problem Gamblers Help Network says its board of directors will meet Monday to discuss yanking the well known 1-800-GAMBLER number from the state.
Terry Elman, acting executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, says he and other administrators are concerned about a plan to shift control of the West Virginia program to the state’s Lottery Commission, bypassing public health officials.
…The council owns and operates the 1-800-GAMBLER line advertised on billboards across West Virginia. It accounted for more than 1,000 of the Help Network’s calls for the first four months of the year, Elman said.
If the board decides Monday to strip the number from West Virginia’s program, it could hurt gamblers looking for help, Elman said. However, “I just can’t see how we can have a gaming representative answering hot line calls … It’s just a preposterous idea.”
The Lottery wants the Department of Health and Human Resources to stop administering the Help Network on July 1. The Lottery, which is required by law to fund the program, would then pay providers directly.Both agencies say the change is administrative and a more efficient way to process bills.
Critics say it’s a conflict of interest for an agency that oversees gambling to also oversee a program that helps people who become hooked. They also worry Lottery officials are not equipped to deal with sensitive medical, mental health and patient-confidentiality issues.
Lottery spokeswoman Libby White declined comment Friday but previously said her agency has no intention of looking at confidential records. The Lottery wants statistics, not names, she said.
The Catholic Conference and the West Virginia Council of Churches have also raised concerns about what they call an alarming case of micromanaging by the Lottery.
“The Catholic Conference is disturbed that at that very same time as voters are being asked to expand gambling in West Virginia, there’s this obvious fraying of the safety net that had been so carefully constructed for those citizens who find themselves addicted,” said the Rev. Brian O’Donnell, executive secretary of the conference.
4/20/2007: StopGam
Jim Orford is professor of clinical and community psychology at Birmingham University. He is an expert on addiction.
He looks at the culture of gambling and asks, why should the majority have their pleasure stopped because of the problems of the few in The Guardian.
“Because it’s not a small minority,” he insists, “and the growth in internet gambling and the casino culture, encouraged by the government, means that it’s growing all the time. The effects of problem gambling on families are relatively hidden. They suffer in silence because there’s not a lot of help available, apart from Gamblers’ Anonymous. The idea that the gambling industry will impose some kind of self-regulation is absurd. They’d be undermining some of their most loyal customers.”
Seven years ago , Orford was the adviser for a questionnaire by the National Centre for Social Research that went out to 7,000 adults. The results provided the raw material for a book he co-authored under the title Gambling and Problem Gambling in Britain. “At the time,” he recalls, “we were able to work out that there were around a third of a million in the UK with a problem. Since then, access to the internet has increased greatly, particularly among youngsters, who are fuelling the growth in online betting. The fact of the matter is that the number of people who find themselves dragged into debts beyond their means depends on availability.
“As casino culture becomes more normalised and we’re bombarded with advertising, the prevalence of problem gambling will increase. And women will be particularly susceptible because family-friendly casinos will seem a lot more glamorous than bingo halls and infinitely more seductive than the average bookie’s shop.”
The survey he helped to conduct seven years ago was commissioned by Gamcare, which is partly funded by the gambling industry. It is a measure of Orford’s concern about current trends that he proclaims himself determined not to finance any of his future research with money from gaming companies. “One of the things about gambling is that everybody is complicit,” he says. The implication is that he no longer wishes to be. He is currently helping to analyse the results of a bigger survey of 10,000 adults, financed by the Gambling Commission, the regulator set up by the Gambling Act that has set in train the liberalising trends that he so deplores.
“It is extraordinary that a Labour government has done this,” he says. Extraordinary, too, he says, that a particularly poor part of Manchester has been chosen for the site of the first so-called super casino. Surely, I suggest, that’s because casinos are seen as a means of regenerating rundown areas?
“Firms of consultants have confirmed my suspicion that the regeneration benefits have been exaggerated,” he says. “Many of the jobs created are low paid and a lot of them won’t go to local people. The main beneficiaries in that part of east Manchester will be pawnbrokers and moneylenders.”
