AS LABOUR is accused of accepting more than £1million from the gambling industry, does anybody remember the then Labour Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell sprawled across a roulette table in 2004? 

Tony Blair’s government were planning to introduce so-called super-casinos in the north of England, rather along the lines of those in Las Vegas. Indeed, Jowell, who died in 2018, had been to Sin City to research the casinos there and somehow thought it was a good idea to bring them over here.

In the end, these casinos never happened. In March 2007, the House of Lords rejected the Gambling Order and, following a huge public outcry, Blair’s successor as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, confirmed in 2008 that all proposals for these super-casinos would be scrapped.  

Thank goodness, one might say, as a collective sigh of relief was heard throughout the land. Yet since then the gambling industry has grown and grown. Anybody who watches television, particularly in the daytime, will see ad after ad for online gambling. These ads were first permitted on British television in 2007 and, although hedged around with many restrictions, have encouraged ever more people to have a flutter. Indeed, the very word ‘flutter’ conveys something which is fun and harmless: everything that gambling is not.

Numerous charities have now got in on the act and lotteries have become a standard method of fundraising for many of them. Age UK, for instance, has a weekly lottery where, by buying a £1 ticket, you could win £2,000. These prizes are handed out every week and on top of that, there are quarterly ‘superdraws’ where you could win a ‘whopping’ (their word) £25,000. Age UK reminds its potential gamblers that, at the same time as buying a ticket, they are supporting a great cause. This is a clever ploy by charities, because although the sums you can win may be relatively modest, they motivate you to gamble by talking up the ‘fun’ element. Don’t just give to a charity! Buy a lottery ticket and you could actually receive money, rather than just doling out for nothing in return. 

And somehow, charities don’t see anything wrong with it. We are told in the TV ads to ‘gamble responsibly’, but in truth there is no way of gambling responsibly. Although the chances of winning a sizeable sum are extremely small, gambling is an addiction at least as serious as drinking, smoking and drug-taking and, in many ways, worse. People have lost their jobs, homes, families, from their gambling addiction. 

Yet by accepting huge sums from the gambling sector for such fripperies as tickets for musicals, pop concerts and football matches, Labour have shown that, although they may be attempting to curb drinking and smoking, they are all in favour of gambling.

Why? The answer is simple. Gambling is a huge money-spinner for any government, whether Labour or Conservative. In 2023/4 gaming raised £3.4billion for the Treasury, compared with £3.3billion the previous year. The amounts raised go up every year as ever more people turn to gambling.

Although gambling is as old as time, it was given a huge boost in the UK by John Major when he approved the setting up of the National Lottery in 1993 as the first state-sanctioned form of gambling. Now, there are many such lotteries which hold out the prospect of winning huge, life-changing sums. Whenever I go into a supermarket, I see people buying lottery tickets. They are almost always poor-looking individuals who are hoping to transform their lives by winning a million or so lovely tax-free lolly. They very rarely do, of course, and indeed many of the stories of those who did win a vast sum have turned to tragedy. The ‘lottery curse’ is well known and quite a few of those who won an unexpected windfall have seen it tear their families and lives apart.

The gambling industry is clever. Although the possibility of winning a huge sum is almost as remote as flying to the moon, lotteries keep the addiction going by doling out tiny sums as incentives. Many of my friends, both real and virtual, proclaim their winnings on social media. They are rarely more than £5 or £10. Even though the amount may be insignificant, it shows that you have ‘won’ and the chances are that you will buy a ticket next week in the hope of a larger win coming your way. Yet the only real winners are the betting companies. The late writer Jeffrey Bernard, an inveterate gambler on horses, said it all: ‘In most betting shops you will see three windows marked “Bet Here” but only one window with the legend “Pay Out”.’

The latest craze is Omaze, where you can win a beautiful house in the country plus a large cash sum to maintain it. Omaze, imported from America, contributes a proportion of the money raised to charity and under some arcane law or other this prize draw is not considered gambling. Therefore, the scheme is not subject to gambling laws.  Each amazing Omaze house is featured prominently in the national press, and as such, encourages even more people to gamble. Who would not want a wonderful £3million house as well as a sum of around £100,000 for its upkeep?

The result of all this is that we have become a nation of gamblers and this of course increased dramatically during lockdown.  Confined to their homes and with nothing to do but watch television, many  turned to online gambling as their only form of excitement, especially as they could no longer bet on horses or other sporting events. The seductive ads they watched also encouraged the habit, of course. Bet 365, one of the most successful online betting companies, received revenues of £3.4billion in 2023. This company has donated £25,000 to Starmer and yet, in its June Manifesto, Labour declared itself ‘committed to reducing gambling-related harm’. 

Some hopes! The Conservatives, of course, also accepted large donations from betting firms. And Labour, by receiving big sums from betting firms as recently revealed, has shown by its actions that it is equally, or maybe even more, in thrall to gambling companies.

So don’t expect any curbs on the ever-growing gambling industry any time soon, whatever the manifesto, probably now more or less forgotten, may have pledged.