Few revelations from BBC's one-sided new gambling series as presenter dips a very hesitant toe in the betting waters

The interesting bit in Changing The Odds, Radio 4's new series on gambling, comes when presenter Lydia Thomas decides to ask Iain Duncan Smith why he's so keen on increased regulation rather than rolling with the traditional Conservative ethos of letting people spend their own money as they see fit. It's something I've wondered about myself.

Still, it shouldn't be a tricky question for a savvy politician to deal with. "One of the reasons I entered politics was to help protect the most vulnerable people from exploitation" – something like that would do.

Instead: "Once a family is in debt, they are less likely to want to go to work . . . What they lose ends up being our problem. We end up having to pick them up."

It's like a warm hug, isn't it? Lose what you like, ruin your life, just don't turn it into a problem for the state and make sure you're at your place of business by 9am the next day.

So that was instructive, at least for anyone who imagined that anti-gambling campaigns might be about looking after people. But, if you've been following the debate in recent years, there hasn't been much else to learn from the two episodes of this series made available so far.

You'll probably get the idea when I tell you that, as well as IDS, Thomas talks to journalist Rob Davies and campaigner Matt Zarb-Cousin in the first half-hour. These are people whose attitudes towards the gambling industry have become familiar. At times, it felt like a review of all the reasons why your mother warned you about betting.

Changing The Odds is a reflection, from a vantage point of 20 years later, on the 2005 Gambling Act and how that, combined with rapid developments in phone technology, led to what Thomas describes as "gambling's big bang" in Britain. "They didn't realise how big the bang would be," she tells us in her introduction, aiming for an ominous tone rather than one of enthusiasm.

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There's an excerpt of Jeremy Paxman telling Tony Blair: "You know the social damage that is caused by addictive gambling," and the prime minister of the day replying: "That's not the question." There is mention of "complex technology designed to keep us playing". 

And this is all in the first 40 seconds. We're not being offered an investigation. It's a programme that already knows what it thinks.

Stewart Kenny, a co-founder of Paddy Power who left the firm in 2016, tells Thomas: "I love gambling." However, if he then explained why, if he spelled out the intellectual stimulation and life-affirming joy that can flow from a flutter, we don't get to hear that part of the conversation. He's here to tell us about his regrets that the firm didn't move sooner to protect its customers from the risk of gambling harm, and he also urges a crackdown on online slot games. 

The significance of his involvement is slightly oversold. "It's quite rare for an industry boss to talk about working for a company," says Thomas. "The industry's a pretty closed book but Stewart's ready to tell his story." Racing Post readers may recall that he already told it, in August 2021.

Thomas has evidently done good work on behalf of struggling gamblers, telling parliament in 2019 that her work had resulted in the return of £500,000 from various firms. Still, I must admit to rolling my eyes on learning here that, in ten years of reporting on gambling, she'd never had a bet herself.

Really? All those Derbys and Gold Cups and Grand Nationals, and not even a curious £2 each-way just to see what the fuss was about?

Anyway, she has now had a go. Kenny puts her on to a slow horse at Newcastle and then some slower greyhounds. She has more luck teaming up with Zarb-Cousin to play the FOBTs which, charmingly, he describes as having been "chemically castrated" by the dramatic reduction in stake limits to £2 per spin.

They win immediately – I couldn't tell if it was £14 or £35 – and rush outside to chatter about how she has flirted with disaster. It reminded me of 17-year-olds in the 1980s, giggling about the chance of getting drunk from a can of Top Deck.

At times Thomas seems close to a realisation about different types of gambling. After her FOBT win, she says: "I've bet on the horses before and lost all my bets because I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I could tell you needed to know something to be able to be good at it."

Oh well, you and I are not her intended audience. But I did feel the biggest risk she took was in boring her listeners. Next week's concluding episode is to be based in Stoke, so at least Denise will tune in.

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