British gamblers
British gamblers

After years of gambling, some walk into betting shops begging to be excluded.

Being officially excluded from a betting shop can help many problem gamblers. As estimated by casino gambling news, there are nearly half a million so-called problem gamblers in the United Kingdom alone. Further 3.5 million are classified as ”at-risk gamblers.”

While now gamblers can demand to be excluded from betting shops, which many critics claim pollute the British streets, we haven’t heard of options to exclude yourself from the many pubs that also are a part of the British landscape. In London alone, there are 14,000 pubs.

Many anti-gambling crusaders refer to the betting shops as ”crack-cocaine” of the neighborhoods in which they operate. This makes us wonder, since the British lead the betting market, are they as bad as Colombian drug dealers? Is online blackjack as powerful and damaging as speed or crack?

Certainly, some serious and deranged gamblers can spend as many as two days without sleeping to gamble online, all while on speed. Some even have jobs, but more likely these are remote jobs, such as web development. This way they don’t need to show their wasted faces to the public.

However, walking into a sports betting shop, or an arcade room, isn’t exactly equivalent of going into bad neighborhood and buying drugs on the street corner. Or is it? Well, according to anti-gambling activists, it is.

So, what is a profile of a problem gambler? More likely these are men. However, this is where the similarities end. The problem gamblers come from all walks of life, gamble at land-based outfits or can do it via mobile casinos, or even go to illegal shops to get the thrill of winning against the mafia boss.

Sometimes family ties lead to problem gambling. One of those, who finally excluded himself from a favorite shop in Yorkshire, England, has had a grandfather who ran a betting shop. Our fellow, as admitted, has spend over 100,000 GBP ($160,000) over two years on gambling.

Is it a problem or not? Most likely it is, but not if you make $10,000,000 a year and throw that amount on a single baccarat bet. Then, it’s like buying old wine for $50,000 and drinking it. Some people need that thrill. But, if you’re poor, keep your bets reasonable.