Economics has absolutely nothing to do with it.
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Paul Merson
- Thread starter Infinite blue
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In principle I agree if a grown adult wants to piss their money away on horse racing or the dogs good luck to them. Likewise if you want to spend your weekend in a pub from Dawn till dusk, your choice.Guess it’s just me that has no issues with drinks and betting companies being required to tell us to drink or gamble responsibly then and leaving it at that. Both are only allowed to sell and market their wares to adults, not sure why we have to go any further lengths. I don’t believe either should be society’s moral arbiters.
I felt no sympathy for Merson at all. Bloke has lost £7m, I agree with him that he’s a **** for that and him having a cry on screen doesn’t change that for me.
However there is a level of sophistication to gambling advertising and recruitment that makes me uneasy add to the fact it is difficult to spot how deep someone is in until they are truly fucked, it is a poison that comes sugar coated.
Do you mind me asking how did you do it?I definitely had a gambling addiction in my early adulthood. Probably lost 3-5 grand over a few years. Got myself banned from online gambling, instantly changed my life and turned around my financial situation. Wish more people would do that.
I have a friend who's life it has destroyed, I've known alcoholics and drug addicts but none caused the damage this guys addiction did. The shame was when I first moved to London he was a brilliant pal, I literally had no clue how far in the hole he was. As of today we are not even sure where he is anymore. 3 year old daughter who he hasn't seen in over a year.
RACHACE
Well-Known Member
Yeah this is my problem with Merson and his tears. He's been crying for over 25 years.Hmmm. Didn't he write his book "Rock Bottom" in 1995? Seems he didn't quite hit the bottom 26 years ago.
There are people who are in far less privileged circumstances than he is that are really struggling with addiction and he's highly likely to be making a mint off the back off a high number of those people with books, appearances and what not.
I get he's got a problem, many also have similar problems but what the vast majority of people who have such problems don't do is surround themselves with said problems. He has worked for Sky for years who are also a bookmaker and if he really wanted to do some good he'd have moved away from anything to do with Sky years ago.
He puts himself 1st and always has done. I've little sympathy with Merson and he's a lucky fucker. If you can't be good, be lucky I suppose.
Do you mind me asking how did you do it?
I have a friend who's life it has destroyed, I've known alcoholics and drug addicts but none caused the damage this guys addiction did. The shame was when I first moved to London he was a brilliant pal, I literally had no clue how far in the hole he was. As of today we are not even sure where he is anymore. 3 year old daughter who he hasn't seen in over a year.
There's a website where you enter your personal details, Gamstop. It checks your ID and bans you from all online betting. Now that probably won't work for everyone, I'm sure there are ways you can get around it if you really try, but it worked for me.
The hard part was summoning the nerve to actually do it, because the irrational part of me still clung onto the hope that I'd win back what I lost if I kept betting. Ironically it only took me a couple of months to make back those losses through work, so I could've done it years before.
My bet365 account informed me today...However there is a level of sophistication to gambling advertising and recruitment that makes me uneasy add to the fact it is difficult to spot how deep someone is in until they are truly fucked, it is a poison that comes sugar coated.
To make life easier for me they are making the cash balance freely available to all their games.
ie if you wanted to play the casino you had to transfer money across to another part of Bet365 now you can just switch between the two, how very convenient for me lol
Some pissed up guy lands a horse bet and then spunks it all on number 17 on the roulette wheel inside 20 minutes.
How very convenient all round :)
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paul merson gambling addiction is a well known fact and he's had so many people helping him you think it would be impossible for him to place a bet with any bookies on online or off line ? but they still take his money and laugh at him and sleep very well at night knowing they will not get punished for it
the government are also to blame in this and rules should be so tight that if somebody having trouble with gambling
a family member of a friend can get them blocked instant from using bookies or online gambling forever and anybody found taking money for a bet of them should face prison and closed down
its worst than a class A drug addiction and pusher or sellers get jail if caught selling it to somebody so why gamble addiction is any different ?
paul-merson is not everybody's number pundit but its hard to see anybody struggling with a addiction
yes he was a clown and liked a drink and parties but it was a part of football in the 90s and to fit in you had to be one of the lads so many just did it to keep in the lads
the government are also to blame in this and rules should be so tight that if somebody having trouble with gambling
a family member of a friend can get them blocked instant from using bookies or online gambling forever and anybody found taking money for a bet of them should face prison and closed down
its worst than a class A drug addiction and pusher or sellers get jail if caught selling it to somebody so why gamble addiction is any different ?
paul-merson is not everybody's number pundit but its hard to see anybody struggling with a addiction
yes he was a clown and liked a drink and parties but it was a part of football in the 90s and to fit in you had to be one of the lads so many just did it to keep in the lads
Franny 1234
Well-Known Member
He never as a good word to say about our club and I couldn't care about him.CTIDI agree he’s a **** of the highest order, can’t stomach the fucker
SWP's back
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Everything is economics. Great book about that being a fact called Freakonomics.Economics has absolutely nothing to do with it.
5% doesn't sound like a lot does it...
https://www.finder.com/uk/gambling-statistics
According to this, pretty much 50% of the population have gambled in the last 4 weeks and 20% of British people say they have gambled at least twice in the last week.
So using the second of those stats approx 12M people have gambled a couple of times in the last week, of those 5% have a problem. Thats conservatively 600,000 people that have a problem with gambling. Over half a million people.
Sounds like a quite serious issue to me.
I wonder what the cost to society is?
Meanwhile Bet365 made £660 Million on turnover of £2.86B in 18/19
Interesting symetry there, 600K > 660M
I know this is simplistic but lets say the sociatal cost of maintaining 600K problem gambler is £1000 per year per gambler... which probably covers a few lost work days, maybe a visit or 2 to the doctor.
There you go, society pays £600M which goes straight to Bet365, they paid just over 100M in Tax and the Chief Exec took £421M as remuneration.
But hey, she did give £10M to the NHS during Covid... thats about 0.25% of her pay (and is tax deductable)... what a hero
Is the lottery and scratch cards gambling? They’re no different to buying raffle tickets just with bigger prizes as according to that link over 50% of UK gambling is via this way.
“Gambling addiction is estimated to cost the UK between £260 million and £1.2 billion per year”
That’s quite a big difference in estimation, it’s as if they don’t have a clue.