Why ignorance is no match for experience in the gambling debate

It is a common and ludicrous component of many a modern (especially online) debate that the opinions of those with no knowledge of the subject are weighed equally with those whose life's work it has been to familiarise themselves with it. Gambling would be a pertinent example.

Wouldn't it be lovely to gather together all the members of the Gambling Commission in a quiet room and ask them to rattle off the entirety of their collective experience of betting shops, racecourses, best bets, worst bets, punting highs and lows. I suspect it would be a very short meeting punctuated by embarrassed silences, but with scant admission that such ignorance of their supposed specialist subject was in any way an impediment to their making an informed decision on matters that risk the ruination of the racing industry and countless lives and livelihoods.

People with lifetimes of experience are telling them that the vast majority of punters are disciplined enough not to send their families to rack and ruin, and that they are driving problem gamblers into the hands of the unlicensed and the unregulated where real damage can be done, but they are just not listening

What bothers me most about all this is that people with a huge and unwieldy agenda, untouched by expertise, have been given the power to control my life choices, seemingly without recourse to independent thought or data-led intelligence.

It can't be right, can it? And it makes me wonder which of my 'vices' is going to be next on the chopping block.

I'm fully expecting to go into a wine shop in the near future in a renegade bid to buy a bottle of plonk and be asked to hand over my financial and medical particulars to a spotty youth with a plastic name tag, only to be turned away on the basis that I don't have sufficient assets in my savings account and am in a high-risk group for raised cholesterol and piles.

To be honest, this dystopian scenario would make far more sense than the one I'm currently contemplating as a punter, although in both cases we'd quickly find ways around the ham-fisted regulations, albeit in unsatisfactory ways that would decimate honest businesses along the way.

These shocking affordability checks brought in by the Gambling Commission are at the behest of the governmentCredit: Getty

Perhaps the scariest thing of all is that the laughable stuff and nonsense of the Gambling Commission seems to have been initiated by the government (presumably to curry favour with noisy anti-gambling lobbyists), given teeth by the government (as a sign of its noble intent to rid the country of its social ills), and is now on the brink of being accepted as gospel by the government, with no thought given as to how much clue its own appointees are blessed with or where their motivation lies.

I shall ask the question next time I see one of them in a betting shop.

Letters to the editor: pro punters are being forced out of the game 

I am writing from experience to express exactly how serious the proposed changes to the gambling industry are.

I am speaking from a historic position as I gave up gambling some years ago before these regulations had ever been considered, but that was down to closed and heavily restricted accounts which made it impossible to get a bet of even £100 on anything (with the notable exception of William Hill it should be noted), and therefore the enjoyment was taken out of my betting ­experience.

I was employed in the City of London, working for a well-known financial institution and earning a decent salary for 25 years, although my first love was always racing and betting.

My family were turf accountants, as they were known as back in the day, and eventually sold their string of shops in north London to Mecca (as they were then).

After 25 years in the City, I decided to leave and become a professional punter, something I was successful at for circa ten years until, as explained, my enjoyment and passion for the sport was taken away from me.

During my time as a pro punter I was having an annual turnover of circa £250,000 to earn a net profit of £40/50,000 per annum. Many people I knew back in those days were doing a similar thing, and my point is that all of these professional or semi-­pro­fessional punters turning over many millions of pounds per year will now be totally excluded from the sport.

Passing the government’s idea of affordability checks would not be possible for most of these people as they made their living from gambling itself, and their contribution to the levy should never be underestimated.

I would stress that at no point did I consider myself a problem gambler or somebody whose gambling was out of control, and indeed all of my similar contacts were exactly the same. It was our passion, our livelihood and our choice.

Be under no illusion, this is Big Brother in its infancy and will only get worse if people do not make a stand.
Simon R Kerridge
Colchester, Essex

Read more comment on the Gambling Review here: 

'We shouldn't tell people how to spend their money' - MP Laurence Robertson to press minister over affordability checks 

'It's a step too far' - Grade 1-winning owner Carl Hinchy quits racing over affordability checks 

Affordability checks explained and how to respond to the Gambling Commission consultation 

Tell us about your experience of affordability checks  

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