Get used to it whippin,ch4 racing and the Racing Post seem to be following their lead,RP even reporting LGBT+ getting involved in sponsoring racing during "National Coming Out Day!!!

FFS the days of bent jockeys and trainers taking on a new meaning!!!

To give some balance to what might be misconstrued as a "sexiest" comment. Francesca & Sally Ann are much better at their jobs than Ed & Oli.

victoria is wasted on mitchell peepshow is a timeless classic and he may be quite clever/witty but I feel she deserves more than this little fella imho

his young lad has a good left foot

There was a chart The Economist made a few months ago, I’ll dig it out later, that showed the propensity of Premier League sponsorship.
From memory there were no bookies sponsoring it when it started, and now the industry is the single biggest advertiser on football shirts.

I thought it was worth a watch, they didn't hold back. Already knew that risk/reward/brain plasticity occurs in all individuals through repetitive gambling. Didn't realise how out of control compulsive gamblers are though, they truly have an illness. Always suspected that bookies target them. But still a bit shocked about the collateral info they collect allowing them to manipulate compulsive gamblers, even though I've seen it first hand as one of my friends was almost bankrupted a few years ago through gambling on PaddyPower casino and he got all the VIP treatment during the downwards spiral.

Merstham, not the sharpest tool in the box, but not a total failure as has a wife standing by him and some great kids. Now he has had the courage to make that program and opening up about himself, I hope he can cope with criticism that will be thrown at him and find some happiness as he rebuilds.

At a personal level, I love gambling as I assume most of us do and am so glad I am not a compulsive gambler.

I believe theres a saying within neuroscience; 'What fires together, wires together'

Meaning that pleasure is cemented in the activities where neurotransmitters are relearsed due to an action, over time the habit forms because neurons literally connect at the cost of connections elsewhere. His brain showed the result of that.

The silver lining in the programme was that it exposed the uselessness (deliberately obviously) of the approach that the industry has been permitted to adopt of putting all the responsibility on the addicted person.

The fact that the operators devise and are permitted to market addictive products is an aspect that needs more airing imo.

Shouldn't the audio guys in bookies be banned? One of the blokes for Spoils will say, every day, that a particular 'special is proving very popular.  The bookies could be only open 10 mins and he'll say this. Totally lying.

The latest craze before Covid shut the shops were firms holding FREE competitions on the machines with top scorers getting FREE betting vouchers.

.... objective? To get customers hooked on gaming machines. Even the thick bookie apologists on here can`t dispute that.

Since betting shops opened in the early 60s and even more so since the evolution of the internet, Bookies huge profits are made from problem compulsive gamblers, yet they still come out with all the guff forced on them by the gambling commission. e.g. "When the fun stops, STOP"! when in reality, they don`t give a F.

Responsible winning gamblers get their accounts shut and are blacklisted in the shops.

*underfunding* ?

Like alcohol, gambling would never get a licence if it was invented tomorrow.

There was a story about a guy depositing over 2000 times in a year. Wouldn't be able to do that now ?  Also Merson going in full bank after each win. That tells you he really wants to lose and have no money in order to have to stop rather than need any discipline.

Like he was going 'look how focked up I am ill do this and not think'

It's a brain illness, the winning or losing doesn't make a difference to a compulsive gambler, until it's all gone. It does make difference to family and other dependants though.  The Panorama program last year showed a guy with hundreds of deposits a week and hand stolen/borrowed a lot of money from work and friends and a woman again with hundreds of deposits a week, in her case with Jackpot Joy. I think she had lost 600k inheritance money in about six months.

I was amazed banks were allowing that many transactions without some sort of check. I'm assuming it can't happen nowadays with affordability checks in place.

I dont doubt he has/had no understanding of the value of money as has already been mentioned, footballers are massively overpaid and dont tend to be Mensa types.

But him betting sensibly or coming across as rational wouldnt have made much of an impact.

The psychology of a compulsive gambler is very interesting,a lad who used to work for me a few years ago,on about £300 pw told me that when he had money in his betting a/c he couldn’t sleep & would often get up in the middle of the night to find something to bet on,& also that when he’d lost his last penny he felt a great sense of relief.as far as Mersin is concerned don’t feel much sympathy but does beg the question why someone earning huge money would feel the need to gamble,it’s a pity no one nudged him into horse ownership,would have kept him interested in the game.would still probably have cost him but at least it would have been slower.

Weak c**t.

And that was all she wrote.