Betting is a good thing - and there should be nothing unfashionable or even shameful about saying so

I think betting is a good thing. There, I’ve said it. For a long time it’s felt like something that, while certainly unfashionable to say, has also felt somehow shameful. But an article in the Racing Post this weekend drove home the point that it really shouldn’t be that way.

There were many wonderful aspects to my colleague Lee Mottershead’s interview with Jack Berry, but one that stood out was the way Berry spoke about his son Sam, permanently disabled after a fall at Sedgefield, who now finds joy in placing his small bets on the horses each day and recently got up a 5p yankee. Talking to those who look down on the noble art of betting on horses, Berry said: “If they could only hear our Sam, in his state, shouting when he gets a winner, they might think differently about betting.”

Too many these days would apparently see Sam Berry’s 5p yankee as the first step on the route to ruination, unable to process the idea that gambling as a ‘serious hobby’ is no more destructive or expensive than any other.