Do I really need to explain my aversion to bookies opening in FH Baboonery? With the 'recent' arguments for and against super-casino's in the news, the argument that gambling aids in the regeneration of an area by creating jobs & wealth is a flimsy one.
The argument I've never made, you mean? Right-ho, carry on.
Being a little pedantic aren't we? I didn't specify that you were making that argument, I was just demonstrating that that is the general argument in favour of new gambling establishments being opened.
I realise that you are arguing that bookmakers aren't harmful to an area, and I am trying to tell you that I believe they are.
Yes, the buildings may be unobtrusive, the punters less immediately troublesome than some of the pubs, but the problems they create, in my opinion, spread far deeper into our society than you are seeing. What happens when the (often dole-bludging) gambling addicts have blown their cheque on a horse with 3 legs? Poverty reigns - they build up impossible credit card debts, beg, or they steal.
Taken from gamblingtherapy.org, the first place I looked for some figures for you:
Three out of four Britons gamble every week,
A statistic at odds with that produced by the Gambling Commission, which suggests that that level isn't even reached within one year.
95% of all statistics are made up - choose the one's that back your argument or consider them a waste of time, it's your choice. I imagine that that figure was reached by including the lottery, bingo etc etc.
and we lose around nine-and-a-half billion pounds every year, a figure which has doubled in just four years. With the passing of the Gambling Act these figures will continue rising. The Government is increasing the opportunity to gamble and will be responsible for creating many more addicts with devastating effects on tens of thousands of families.
The Government raised almost ?2 billion in taxes last year from the gambling industry and Mark Griffiths who, as the only professor on gambling in this country, advises the Government on policy, tells The Insider that Ministers haven't listened to all his concerns.
Would this be the same Mark Griffiths who conducted the Gambling Commission study which suggests that gamblingtherapy.org's statistics are nonsense?
I wouldn't know. So which do you prefer? Nags or pooches? Try to avoid the ones with 3 legs, won't you?
He says that the with the Gambling Act making it easier to open betting shops, most of which are in poorer areas, it will be the poor who suffer the most. Most of Britain's bookies are concentrated in the poorest neighbourhoods, like inner-city Hackney which has 95 shops. Yet, the industry wants to open more, despite local opposition. One resident tells The Insider that only one out of 400 locals who responded to his survey was in favour of a new betting shop.
Are you sure that one of the bookies is moving from a prominent site to a slightly more prominent site? Or are they actually opening a new shop, and keeping the old one too? And then there were three.
I didn't refer to them previously as a detrimental business, but I fully agree that they are.
I didn't say you did, I said someone did.
I didn't say you said I did. I was agreeing with them.
Nice conflation of all gambling into one, and blaming it on high-street bookmakers, there, well done. Are newsagents selling lottery tickets a target of equal opprobrium? Scratchcards? Pubs? While you've got your puritan hat on is there anything else you'd like to ban?
Far be it from me to cast ignominy upon such fine upstanding establishments! I believe it is you conflating arguments there! And I haven't made any points denigrating lottery practitioners. I'm sorry, I don't have the energy to get into vitriolic banter with you. You have my arguments against betting shops, particularly when they are increasing in number in one particular area, and there is evidence to back it. Believe what you will.
I'm not sure that they're not keeping the old one, no, but I'm led to believe they're not, and it wouldn't really make economic sense, would it? Will demand double just by opening a new outlet? I doubt it.
Did demand double to ensure the opening of a bloody great Paddy Power on Dartmouth Road?! I doubt it! And I'm fairly sure while people are in the grip of panic over credit card debts and mounting mortgage repayments, the appeal of a potential big win will keep another bookies afloat too. Why work for it when you can win it eh?! Only the house wins in the end.
Wikipedia (Which admittedly isn't particularly reliable, but then obviously gamblingtherapy.org isn't either) states that there are now about 8,500 betting shops in the country, as compared to 15,000 at an unspecified point in the past. Your concept of bookies opening left, right and centre is just wrong.
I don't have a general concept of bookies opening left right and centre. I have knowledge of an increase in scale or increase in outlets in FH, and that is what I care about and would like to prevent. I don't believe gambling spending or betting shops are closing down in the long run - they are both increasing as more lenient laws allow them.
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