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EVERY DAY WE experience a huge volume of ads that aim to convince us to carry out certain actions.
The gambling industry has worked particularly hard to create a strong link in our minds between major sports events and betting. Watching a match, we are bombarded with reminders to download gambling apps or put a few bob on the score.
You may not be actively noticing it, but 75.4% of sporting broadcasts show at least one gambling advertisement. In fact, gambling ads are the most common during sporting events televised in Ireland, and the 7th most common form of ad shown.
A wide variety of topics are pushed as potentials for a flutter – even politics is targeted by these companies. One betting company currently has odds for the year of the next general election, which party will get more seats in the next General Election and even the likelihood of a United Ireland before 2024.
A nation of gamblers?
While we have been socialised to believe that this behaviour is harmless by the betting industry, it’s not.
We need to stop linking betting with the enjoyment of sports and entertainment and acknowledge that this behaviour is harmful and we shouldn’t continue to allow betting companies to manipulate people in this way.
Gambling addiction is a silent scourge across the nation, which is why the Labour Party will tomorrow publish legislation to deal with this. We have a national problem with gambling in this country.
In 2019, Ireland had the 7th highest gambling spend in the world – €9.8 billion (€379.51 per head), according to a H2 Gambling Capital report. Our legislation will prevent unnecessary encouragement of gambling – banning all gambling ads across the media, on public transport, billboards and online outlets.
This legislation is more important now than ever. There have been big changes in recent years in the ease with which people can gamble due to our smartphones.
Whereas previously there was some limit to the damage that could be caused as a result of people having to go to betting shops, now any one can gamble any amount of money on their phone in an instant.
All it takes is one prompt while scrolling Twitter or a reminder at half time. This is obviously going to contribute to the problem and gives more of a reason why the advertising of gambling should be banned.
The Covid effect
The stresses of Covid-19 have challenged the resilience and coping strategies of us all, but particularly individuals with addictions who are finding it even harder to continue in their recovery and avoid relapse.
Studies in Canada show that those suffering from anxiety and depression are more likely to gamble online during the first six weeks of emergency measures and be classified as high-risk gamblers.
With people staying at home, cutting social contacts and having more time on their hands, it is almost inevitable that problem gambling will continue to rise, especially given current online gambling availability.
The College of Psychiatrists, who in the course of their work help people pick up the pieces of lives destroyed by gambling addiction, and they have noted anecdotal evidence of a concerning rise in gambling addiction referrals since the first lockdown here in Ireland.
They see the consequences of gambling addiction on a daily basis and they have called for an immediate ban on all gambling advertising.
That is what our legislation does. Informed by medical professionals who are at the coalface of this particular public health issue, we want to break the link between entertainment and the gambling industry. We don’t allow ads to encourage smoking – why should gambling be any different?
It should be possible to be interested in who’ll win the Championship, without people almost automatically thinking they should put a fiver on Kildare this year. Gambling is harmful and shouldn’t be encouraged. Ending the industry’s control and manipulation of us is one clear step in addressing this problem.
Senator Mark Wall is Labour Spokesperson on Sport, Defence and Tourism. More at https://www.labour.ie/gambling.
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There choice to get sent there….
@Paul: Is it a choice to have the neurological disorder ADHD, a condition that affects impulsivity, causes those affected to act first and think later (32%). Is it a choice to have a mental health problem (55%)? Is it a choice to have a learning disability (36%) or learning difficulty (22% i.e. an IQ below 70)? Is it a choice to be at risk of neglect or abuse (47%)? Is it a choice to be born into a background of poverty or criminality?
@David Jordan: all very well but the vast majority of people in the world diagnosed with these issues and have steered clear of the wrong side of the law. So by your reasoning does it mean that the other ones in there are just simply bad people or shall we draw up an excuse for each and everyone. If it were the case that their mental health problems/learning disabilities/learning difficulty reduced their mental age capacity or hampered it in a way they could not differentiate between right and wrong they tm would not be in a facility like Oberstown. Oberstown is for criminals under the age of 18. Would you be signing off the same hymn sheet if they had robbed your car or held a knife to your mother’s throat and took her pension?
@Paul: absolutely, just like it was your choice not to be educated. The word is spelled ‘Their’.
I’ll elaborate…. look at those vulnerable children over (there)’. (They’re) alone in (their) rooms without any parental guidance through no fault of their own.
3 versions of the same sounding word.
Seems your lack of education is not solely limited to poor spelling. Perhaps research what the potential effects of broken homes, abusive parents, alcohol related issues, lack of parental support etc have in young children.
Hope you receive the help you need (Night classes perhaps?), just as I hope these children receive the help they themselves need.
@David Jordan:
And just so we are clear ADHD can sometimes (not always) affect impulsivity. It’s more to do with an inability to maintain persistent attention to tasks etc along with hyperactivity, hence the name. It’s far too easy nowadays to throw out a few letters and dismiss people’s actions as a result.
@Paul: *their
@Paul: “Their”
@David Jordan: The most serious well known disorder that these kids suffer from is BOLD.
@David Jordan: oh and to your last line maybe we should start looking at that and that decisions should be taken brfore the birth of a child to determine whether prospective parents(s) have the required “where with all” to safely bring up a child.
Never ceases to amaze me that people can be so sympathetic to children in abusive and non-loving homes but as soon as those children reach an age of about 14 all that sympathy goes straight out the window.
Small children that don’t get the same start in life that others take for granted WILL grow up to be potentially criminals. They don’t just suddenly “learn” the right way to function in society if they’ve never been taught.
And yet there seems to be a distinct reticence by many to fund early intervention and parental assistance. There seems to be a feeling that the parents don’t deserve help with the added bonus of the child grows into an adult that “doesn’t deserve help”.
And so the wheel turns.
@Tricia Golden: Many of these teenagers come from criminal homes. Grandfather’s, Fathers, Brothers, Uncles and Cousins, many been have and are involved in criminal activities. For them crime is as natural as going to work is for you.
@Tricia Golden: The percentages are frightening. Travellers represent 23% of the inmates but are only 0.6% of the general population. This is a huge figure and it’s screaming at us to get this “Culture” removed with education and good role models. This way of life costs us taxpayers tens on millions a year but we are still not addressing the problem !
@Ser Barristan Selmy: Well done missing my point.
I am specifically pointing to early intervention, supplying good role models and providing advice and assistance to parents long before these children reach the stage where the penal system needs to “teach them”.
I will concede that “will” versus “potentially” but I suspect it doesn’t detract from my overall point beyond giving you something to focus on apart from my main argument.
@Richard Wright: Did I say that or is it that what you yourself are thinking?
@Richard Wright: Firstly you are assuming that I am Christian yet know nothing about me, secondly you are assuming I am writing anyone off instead of making a factual point. Anymore assumptions you would like to jump to?
@Ser, did you even read the article? No, at 14 if the “scrotes” as you call them, have NOT learned social norms. If they’re living with parents who couldn’t give a cr*p about them, where drinking or doing drugs, neglecting them, then of course they’re never going to learn what’s ok because they’ve never seen it. As for the penal system teaching them, you are out of your mind. None of this addresses the issues or fixes the problem. Does this mean we should have group hugs and candlelight vigils? No. But perhaps putting in better structures, early intervention and a social care system that works beyond 5pm on a Friday, May be places to start.
No, Ser, they don’t. If they’ve never been taught it, and shown it, they can’t pick it up by osmosis
@Richard Wright: A discussion between a mental health expert (West Cork Lad) and Mick Jordan,on this very topic..Maybe this will give you a better insight into Micks thoughts on these children…
http://www.thejournal.ie/special-care-unit-hiqa-2302413-Aug2015/#comments
@Ser Barristan Selmy: Read that article in the link that I just put up,as It might help to answer the question that you just asked of Jeannette…
Ser, early intervention and a well staffed, proper social services Dept that opens beyond 5pm on a Friday. As to knowing right from wrong and it’s full implications, we wouldn’t expect a child who was never spoken to, to be able to speak.
@Ser Barristan Selmy: My bad.I asked you to read the article.I should have said the comments section of it…
Think a free hug session is over due.
The poor darlings
Plenty of kids and adults with adhd successful in life and not robbing backsterds and burglars and car thief’s….. And I’ve no doubt the state did all it could for them by giving them free access to doctors medication councillors. Unlike the ones who pay for it
Where is Paul Murphy’s contribution on all of this ?
We’re in the process of creating our own home grown terrorist problem.
This chaos has to stop. Reopen St. Pats for god sake…..
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