Last night I was the guest speaker at the group meeting of the Derby Advanced Riders group. On the way up to the meeting I stopped at Leicester Forest East services to meet a colleague who was coming with me. I went and got a coffee and wondered back to the front door to meet my colleague and have a smoke which is by the gaming zone. There was a chap playing the slot machines, and in the 10 minutes or so it took me to drink my coffee I watched this bloke stuff £10 notes into the machine as quick as he could. I counted at least £200 go in, and not once in the time I was watching did I see him win so much as a bean, and I guess the fact that he was sat on a stool, he had probably been there for some time before I saw him, and he was still playing when my colleague and I left 20 minutes or so later, so I hate to think how much he spent. My initial thought was that maybe he is a gambling addict, but either way, just on the amount of cash I saw him put in, it was a good reminder as to why I have no interest in gambling as I immediately thought of a lot of things I would rather spend that amount of cash on and at least have something to show for it
I've recently found myself pondering on the advertising bans on tobacco and alcohol. Plus the fact that championing anything edible that has sugar or fat in it is likely to turn you into a social pariah of almost Savillian proportions, and yet we are currently inundated with entire television channels devoted to and adverts for gambling websites with seemingly not even lip service to the misery it can cause. Does the ASA even consider that there is a socio-economic risk involved in this trend?
