Billion pound game

By Sean Coughlan
BBC News Magazine

This year's World Cup is going to see a "seismic increase" in gambling ... and that's on top of betting on Big Brother and online poker. Has the UK become a nation of gamblers?

This summer, £1bn is going to be staked in bets on the World Cup.

That's the prediction from Professor Leighton Vaughan Williams, a government adviser on gambling and head of the Betting Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, who says gamblers in the UK are set to gamble an unprecedented amount on this year's biggest sporting event.

This will be the latest surge in sports betting which, in just five years, has seen the amount gambled in the UK rise from about £7bn per year to £40bn, he says.

Betting bonanza

How has this happened? Why have we been gripped by this gambling spree?

Football clubs are also sponsored by online gambling brands

First of all, the nature of the betting market has changed radically. A decade ago, he says "betting on horse races would have been the be-all and end-all, everything else would have been crumbs from the table".

Now, though it is growing, horse racing is "falling dramatically" as a share of the sports betting market and represents less than half of what's gambled. Taking its place, particularly in internet gambling, has been football.

Another key factor has been that it is now much easier to bet - through the internet, mobile phones and interactive television.

And this growth in ways of gambling has gone hand in hand with the expansion in satellite and cable television sports channels.

So without leaving your home, you can place an online bet on a football match - predicting the score, the time of the first goal, the goalscorer or the number of corners - and then watch the match live.

Smoke-filled bookies

There's also a trend for continuing to make bets during a match, says Professor Vaughan Williams, with the odds shifting as the game progresses.

The first edition of the Sportsman rolled off the press last week

The removal of betting tax has also provided an incentive for gamblers, he says.

It also reflects a major social change. When England last won the World Cup, betting shops had only recently been legalised - now gambling is a multi-billion part of the leisure industry.

An example of the broader appeal has been the launch last week of the Sportsman, a daily newspaper for sports betting.

The news pages are dominated with football - alongside coverage of horseracing, golf, snooker, tennis and cricket (the Ashes prompted a surge in Test Match gambling).

But the paper also views other topics through the perspective of bookmakers' odds. It has a political column - looking at how long the Budget speech was going to last and how many sips of water the Chancellor was going to take during the speech.

Big Brother, big bet

Gambling has also entered the entertainment industry. Punters placed £10m on this year's Oscars, and there was £20m staked on the last US presidential election.

There's nothing that moves that you can't bet on Professor Vaughan Williams

William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe says live television coverage is the common factor in driving increases in betting - not just in sport, but also creating betting booms around reality television shows such as Big Brother.

Gambling is everywhere. Get on a budget airline and they're trying to sell you scratch cards, the national lottery is selling tickets in the supermarket, turn on the television and there are whole channels dedicated to gambling.

And with the prospect of bigger casinos opening in the UK, a Lancashire further education college has built its own training casino where students can learn about roulette, blackjack and poker as they train to be croupiers and slot machine engineers.

Backlash

Teenagers being taught poker? With gambling becoming so pervasive, is there likely to be a backlash?

Lancashire casino students are to be taught roulette and poker

In the United States, there are already signs of a political battle brewing over online gambling, including fast-growing varieties such as online poker.

Earlier this month a committee in the House of Representatives approved a proposal which would stop payments from within the United States to gambling websites, even if they were based offshore.

But the online gaming companies remain confident that the proposals will not make the statute book - and that such legislative skirmishes will not stop their growth.

The increase in betting - with 1,800 gambling websites open 24 hours a day - has also meant an increase in people needing help with gambling problems, says advice service Gamcare.

£25,000 debts

The average amount of gambling debt reported by people looking for advice is now £25,000, says Gamcare's Andrew Poole. But people can often under-report their losses, he says - and gamblers can owe much higher figures.

Three years ago, about 5,000 people per month were using Gamcare's online advice service, now the monthly figure has risen to 52,000.

And he says that online gambling can create a particular problem for "isolated, socially vulnerable people" who might have few other ways of interacting with people - and who end up spending more than they can afford.

"When gambling is increasing so much, we must anticipate more problems," says Mr Poole.

But Graham Sharpe of William Hill says that the gambling industry is as keen as anyone to reduce problems with gambling.

"No one wants people gambling beyond their means," he says, and betting shops and gambling websites carry information about getting help.

For the vast majority of people, he says, making a bet is simply a way of giving an extra edge to watching a football match or a horse race.

But expect to hear plenty more about the latest odds this summer. "There's nothing that moves that you can't bet on," says Professor Williams.

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I didn't agree with gambling when it was just the Pools and Bookies and I still don't agree with the current betting phenomenon now. I have seen members of my Family falling into bankrupty and family hardship while these crooks continue to line their pockets. The Gov't should be ashamed of themselves for allowing the rate of expansion that it has undergone in the last several years. I would ban betting immediately.
Niel, Gosport

I am an addicted gambler and I feel everywhere you look now has something to do with gambling. You can't watch a football game these days without the advertising boards around the pitch encouraging you to have an In-running bet on the game and for someone with a habit like mine this is all it takes to tempt me into picking up the phonne and throwing some more of my hard earned down the drain. It also doesn't help that banks are practically throwing loans at people as I can just phone up and get a loan to blow on a few days of gambling like I did recently!
Graham Roberts, Oldham, UK

With the debt culture that we currently have in this country, internet gambling is just one more way in which people are getting themselves deeper and deeper into debt. One solution for this problem could be ensuring that the online gambling websites can only accept payments from debit cards and NOT credit cards. At least this way people wouldn't be betting with money they don't currently have.
Ian Carlson, Liverpool, England

Here we go with the nanny state nonsense, if people want to gamble let them. Online betting sites will make their real money from the people who try it once, lose and never come back, rather than all but the very worst addicts and anyone deluding themselves that they can make a living from gambling (as opposed from the people good enough to actually do so).
Ken, London, England

Last week we learnt that two thirds of first time buyers make lifstyle changes to afford a home (a bad thing apparently). Now we hear that the average annual spend on gambling is getting on for £700 for every man woman and child in the country, with 52,000 people a month logging on to an online service for advice about gambling debts. No wonder I sometimes wonder whether I'm living on the right planet. Is it time for a reality check for us all?
Emlyn Williams, Milton Keynes UK

Has the UK become a nation of gamblers (you ask)? No, because the British have been a nation of gamblers for a long time The emergence of many 'professional' sports (horseracing, boxing, running, rowing etc) in the 18th and 19th centuries came about because people were gambling on the outcome. The Victorians purged professional sport, and the gambling that went with it, but now events have turned full circle, and our latent desire to gamble is actively encouraged by both the industry and government (lotto, anyone?)
James, London

Im not saying gambling addicts, drug addicts and alchoholics etc should not recieve help should they want to chage their ways, but really i feel there is too little responsibility placed on the actual addict. They brought this on themselves and if a vast majority of people can have a drink or a flutter without developing £25k worth of debt then really these people only have themselves to blame, give the bookies a break they make the service available they by no means force you to bet.
stephen brogarth, radlett

Its just another symptom of the greedy get rich quick attitude that is overtaking our nation. No one wants to develop wealth by working and saving anymore. I want it now and I want it easy.
Trev, Poole, Uk

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