Express & Star

What will government do about gambling addiction?

When it was established smoking tobacco was a serious risk to our health warning signs were printed on the packaging and eventually shopping outlets were forced to take the products out of public view and house them behind shutters.

Published
Roulette - just one of many forms of gambling available

Television adverts were banned and various sports which had been sponsored by the tobacco industry were forced to find alternative funding.

Now there seems to be a concern with gambling and it’s going to be interesting to see how the government react to this problem.

It seems more of us are becoming addicted to gambling and with the internet available 24/7 it’s easy to see how some can get into serious debt.

Mainstream television adverts encourage us to gamble to promoting such games as the National, Postcode and Health lotteries stating a percentage of our stake goes to good causes.

I sometimes can’t imagine any government banning these adverts but the promoters should tell us it’s easier to lose that it is to win.

To some people gambling it is like smoking, a habit that’s hard to break.

Paul Kmiolek

Hednesford