Responsible gambling - Tell the truth chaps

responsibility ultimately lies with the punter imo, to either have the required self-control when it comes to gambling or to seek help if they do indeed have a problem.

Problem is, and not sticking up for bookies, you tell someone to calm down on their betting, hear what they say. If we were to be honest, how many people are betting their benefit money on here for instance, how much of the money has come from crime.
etc etc
However bankit, I do understand your sentiment.

I tried to back a horse in a Corals shop this week £50 at 10/1. They rang head office and debated for 2 minutes, by which time the price had changed to 7/1, he said you can have £20 at the new price!!! Meanwhile, why this was going on 5 people were crowded around the FOBTs.

Game's gone.

Games gone simply because they decided they don't want to take Horse racing bets Desert ,yet they tell us the levy is dropping year after year ,well why wouldn't it!

Bookmaking has always been an unsavoury profession run by people of dubious character.
They're there to take your money. Nothing else comes into the equation.

bookies would not exist without those who lose 50% + of their income every week...........thats the reality

i done 600 with 365 today, 600 that I had withdrawn yesterday. They prompt you to cancel the withdrawal every time you sign in. After the last bet was beat I got a message "If at any point you wish to remove the facility to cancel withdrawals, simply contact a member of our Customer Service team"

skint again, only lasted a couple of weeks this time, any time ive got money there is a constant danger of imminently not having money

I don't think hardly anyone has a serious bet in the shops now, online, guaranteed odds is far better.  I see many people now go in to watch a race but few actually place a bet.  The roulette machines is their market now. Someone waiting to take a price with a fiver e/w is not what they want.

What is really sick is that while there is now a 'responsible gambling' campaign in the UK, there are now more than ever versions of gambling that encourage addiction, compulsion and generally irresponsible out of control gambling!

FOBTs, Bingo sites everywhere, a million adverts on TV for gambling....on and on...

The only place for this type of product (fobts) is in licensed Casino's.

As this would close lots of shops and cause much unemployment it will not happen.

Sadly we are all at mercy of the "Big Hoover" ie, multi-national corporations out there to suck up every spare penny in the land. The likes of Amazon, Google Starbucks, Mc'Donalds,
Sky, BT, Mobile phone companies, Power Companies (have I missed any)? And after hoovering it all up they use every tax avoidance method they can not to pay any.

Call me old fashioned but I do miss the the old GPO, CEGB, Local Gas Works and Water Companies, UCP cafe and a Bernie in.

Lock, stock and barrel sold off to the foreigners. It makes me so angry!

Most gambling is down to the individual for me,only blame yourself and nobody else.I do make an exception with FOBT's though as I spoke to a chap who programmed them and said most have such A.I within their techonology that they can 'read' the current player and draw them into a pattern before cleaning them out. They are poison and I have never played them despite staff offering me 'free plays' to become addicted to them.

Oh I forgot, Nike, Adidas, JB Sports.

Rant over.

treetop,

alarmed to hear about the "brainwashing" of customers. Freakish stuff. I thought sublime advertising was illegal.

for the average bookmaker, what % of their profits are from horses? and footie?

seldom catch me in a bookies or boozer these days.lifestyle change not only for me but the public in general.

i will correct that,i wont go to the boozer unless with my wife

times have changed since betting went online for me, I would never have had the size of the bets I sometimes do on here in the bookies in the old days, used to bet a per centage of what I had in my wallet at the time, nowadays it can be a per centage of what you have in your bank account, which is crazy, fortunately never been at all interested in FOBT's but sometimes I wish the internet had never been invented

oneyallbeenwaiting4    05 Jun 16 16:38 
i done 600 with 365 today, 600 that I had withdrawn yesterday. They prompt you to cancel the withdrawal every time you sign in. After the last bet was beat I got a message "If at any point you wish to remove the facility to cancel withdrawals, simply contact a member of our Customer Service team" Laugh

skint again, only lasted a couple of weeks this time, any time ive got money there is a constant danger of imminently not having money


No racing bank ?

Desert Pilot - did that 10/1 horse that went into 7/1 win, or did it lose?

tip to all, sit at the FOBT when you arrive at bookies and pretend to play, you will get free tea and biscuits (maybe even a Greggs pastie, yum), hit fobt and shout obscenities at said machine at regular intervals in earshot and eyeshot of cashier or manager, walk away from machine as if you have done your brains in and grab a few betting slips, you will have little or no trouble in getting a bet on.

Bookies give out free bets etc to lure mug punters in to develope a gambling habit
then tell em to bet responsibly.Bookies should be banned to dishing out this sort of bait.

Yep, problem is that 'legally' the line is that as long as you use the wording of 'responsible' somewhere (in an ad etc) then apparantly that's good enough. You have to laugh when Ray Winstone now says (gravelly voiced) 'and I gamble responsibly at...' ffs.

Like handing out crack cocaine to people and saying 'use this responsibly please'...

pubs are the same, they sell you alcohol all night, then act surprised when a customer gets drunk.

agree aitch - hypocrisy that one for sure! But they have a small sign somewhere with the word 'responsible' on it, so that's ok....

Had a friend who worked for one of the big 4 ,she said they were told to give out free bets on fobts to anyone new ,she said some of the sence in the shop gave her nightmares , people losing their dole week after week , women coming into the shop hoping their parners/husbands had something left to pay the bills .She left after a year it all got too much for her..

...and then there are those indirectly affected - e.g. people getting mugged/burgled/attacked by someone made desperate through these machines. Still the government wouldn't want to intervene in something so harmless would it?

Workrider, I think the way to stop people blowing their Dole Money is to stop giving them cash. If the money is to be used for their rent and food, why not pay the rent directly to the landlord (I think some landlords do get paid like this),Also pay the council tax, services etc. the same way and give them a credit of x amount at their local supermarket to get their weekly shopping, excluding lottery tickets and tobacco.

It wouldn't stop it completely but I am sure it would help and stop innocent members of the family going without.

Big aitch , we pay our refugees that way , give them free houses sometimes in very posh areas , free fuel, free transport ,free education , free everything, in fact some of them get more than the Irish themselves , but are they happy , no way , they are demanding cash as well ,so I doubt the vast majority of the British people on the dole would be willing to have their cash stopped . Of course it would be the correct thing to do for their protection ,alas it'll never happen , as the saying goes cash is king.

A fool and his money will always be parted.

I'm just glad we have this freedom of choice, to be able to bet where and when. Make our own decisions unlike the OP.

Next time, don't walk into a betting shop, nor pub. Was it the dog that drag you in?

Sanctimoniously, go to church and bore everyone there, you'd probably fit in better. Just because, I'm guessing, from your weird post, you can't control your urges. But that doesn't mean the vast majority of the rest of us take pleasure in a bet, have control, and some do win.

the term 'responsible gambling' is now being used as a reverse psychology marketing tool.

just look how they've used the term FUN in their clever 'when the FUN stops' slogan.
dont know how they got away with it.

Gamcare worked to get these slogans into adverts, but I fear you are right - they are rather ineffectual (as in completely) in relation to those who they are aimed at (problem/pathological gamblers).

Pixie - I agree there's nothing wrong with betting/gambling per se - of course I'd say that, I am here and I gamble on here. But what is really sick about the business is the forms promoted that deliberately encourage rapid, habit and addiction forming gambling. Completely the opposite to the idea of 'responsible'.

FOBTs obviously the main evil, but there are many other forms that encourage rapid betting and loss of control ultimately. That is the issue, not whether we have a choice to bet on a horse race for example, which of course I completely agree with as a modern society. The business can't act as though gambling problems have nothing to do with the forms of gambling they produce, as it does.

Owned a shop a few years ago [pre FOBT]. Young lad came in and started punting on horses and dogs. He was completely clueless and knew nothing about gambling.

Took him to one side and told him to forget about gambling, that it was very addictive and he'd prob end up losing his shirt every week. He looked at me as if i were mad. Carried on doing his wages week after week. You just cant help some people.

Blackrock - you're right that some people will develop a problem in any form of gambling. But some forms are definitely almost designed to encourage the problem form of gambling, there is a difference wouldn't you agree?

Agree that FOBT's can be extremely addictive but its all about willpower.

If you lose gambling then stay away from betting shops/online. If you are overweight eat less cream cakes.

I'd have a sizeable wager that most posting here, at one time or another, have had a serious gambling problem and/or know of families devastated by it.

It's also a simple fact that virtually everyone loses in the long run so a huge level of self-control is needed to avoid a wipe out or somehow treat the business as a "game".

No one form of gambling is more addictive than another, its just your own poison of choice and they are all lethal. From the granny on the slot machine, the housewife playing bingo, the under-employed bored out of their brains playing "games" or the worker/professional who is constantly chasing the holy grail,they're all recognisable marks for the betting companies.

Financial markets will pay you less than 1% for taking your pension or deposits on loan yet there's not a gambler out there who would regard a return of 5% on his money as being nothing more than a modest return on a year's effort. Its simple really, back one 1/20 shot a year and you've beaten the market, 5 times over. 5% of a million turnover is fifty grand that probably takes full-time application and a lifestyle no-one would volunteer for. Asking a problem gambler has he a betting bank or introducing personal prejudices does nothing for the case. The most honest and sad contribution here is from oneyallbeen.....and the only question/observation is "where's your betting bank?" The answer is simple: its in someone else's bank!

The best use to which anyone can put their experience is to discourage a young person from the notion of easy money. We know that gambling companies are ruthless and it needs strong wills and strong stomachs to challenge them and their hip marketing messages.

I don't agree all forms of gambling are the same Royal, though I agree any form can lead to problems.

I also disagree that all customer 'targets' are the same either - Bingo sites praying on specific targets, just as FOBTs have a certain type of player in mind. Ruthless IMO.

I've just seen too much devastation stu: you may think that racing would/could be less insidious than say, poker but just look at the festival racing offers and wonder what that's all about. different fish, same scales.

we certainly agree on RUTHLESS and I can't think of a single politician on either side of the Irish Sea who campaigns against organised bookmaking on a sustained basis. Just one journalist in Ireland springs to mind.

Yep, that's a big problem - you couldn't imagine journos/government ignoring people handing out drugs or junkies robbing pensioners, but with gambling problems seems as though they are blind to it. Incredible really.

I'd also argue that those in favour of gambling and freedom be careful (I am on that side in general) - if social problems caused by this get worse, eventually it could be treated with a sledgehammer rather than any sophisticated way. Can't imagine any clever way will be used, rather suddenly it will be 'all gambling' that is to blame, and who knows what political shift that could cause.

Ask any betting shop manager how many self excluders they've got for FOBT's compared to Horses and Dogs...all forms of gambling are defo not the same.

Gambling is more addictive than heroin.

Latest craze with them machines is "Free" competitions for punters with the one showing the best profit winning "Free" betting vouchers. A bit like the local drug dealer giving punters free heroin to get them hooked.

Bookies don`t give a **** about punters. They`ll take every penny you have and if you are winning consistently they won`t take your bets. All that Gamecare nonsense and pathetic slogans, i.e. "If The Fun Stops, STOP" is a load of bull****. They have to put these warnings up by Law.

anyone know anyone destroyed by gambling?

moneytree excluded

Latest craze with them machines is "Free" competitions for punters


they have been doing that for years, it aint new

Three of my friends committed suicide and it was mostly down to gambling.

whoah so bad

..... naw naw naw, before anybody says it, they weren`t betting my tips

It was very upsetting at the time. Obviously, it was over a span of a few years. Two jumped in front of trains.

... other took an overdose.

blimey - that's hardcore mightymac

..... naw naw naw, before anybody says it, they weren`t betting my tips....

in what way does the cash race promote responsible gambling ?  just asking ....