Advocates of safer measures must distinguish between gambling and betting

Many punters who have had their stakes restricted simply for having the temerity to show a profit will laugh at the irony of the possibility of bookmakers being forced to limit bet-sizes for everyone, including those who consistently lose.

At present it appears to be a threat that is more real for casino and other gambling products than for the more skill-based activities of racing and sport betting, but that is not to say it might not happen one day as pressure to tighten the regulation of gambling intensifies still further.

A fascinating piece by colleague Bill Barber this week examined the likelihood of more stringent measures to ensure gambling is safer and fairer, and while any such project is likely to focus mainly on casinos and slots, there are concerns among operators that reform could eventually embrace all forms of wagering.

Lord Grade: how we're trying to protect racing while tackling gambling harm

Areas of focus are likely to include a review of limits on stakes and deposits, aligning the minimum £2 stake for shop FOBTs to their equivalent online versions, and banning advertising and VIP schemes, probably through a reformed Gambling Act that reflects the increased activity on digital products since the original Act was written in 2005.

This is understandably sending a shiver down the spines of all bookmakers, who have been given a stark warning that if they thought scrutiny of the industry might end with the FOBT stake cut they were sorely mistaken.

Clearly, politicians and organisations seeking to protect vulnerable people from harm are still eager to force through further measures to minimise problem gambling.

In a recent article in the Times Carolyn Harris and Iain Duncan Smith of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on gambling-related harm referred to online gaming as ‘the tobacco of our times”.

But while it is obviously necessary to ensure robust and effective measures are in place to minimise problem gambling one wonders who dreams up phrases like that.

Surely tobacco is still the tobacco of our times. Nearly 80,000 people die of smoking in the UK every year and almost half a million hospital admissions are attributable to cigarettes, and while many of those deaths will be a legacy of the bad old days when tobacco companies could sponsor sporting events and advertise on TV I have to say I find it somewhat insulting to equate gambling with smoking.

I used to smoke 20 cigarettes a day. It was a vile habit that brought me zero positives and I still give thanks to Allen Carr, author of the wonderful The Easy Way To Stop Smoking, for getting me off the nicotine so quickly and painlessly.

Betting, by contrast, brings me pleasure, intrigue and mental stimulation, and that is the case for the vast majority of punters.

Some smokers enjoy the experience but all know it is doing them harm. That’s the difference.

So obviously there needs to be effective help for those who cannot gamble safely, but not in ways that impact negatively on those who are perfectly capable of betting harmlessly because that would take us into nanny state territory.

Limiting weekly deposits and stakes has merit when it comes to games of chance, for which there is no long-term prospect of winning, if done in conjunction with effective proof of income checks.

But there needs to be a clear distinction between gambling and betting. Sticking money into a roulette machine is a different game to carefully studying a Pontefract handicap, and those who bet on Lucky Boy should be treated differently to those who bet on red or black.

There also needs to be careful monitoring of the extent to which measures that have been implemented are successful. To that end it is disappointing to find an apparent lack of analysis into what effects the reduction of the maximum FOBT stake from £100 to £2 has had on helping alleviate problem gambling. How can potential future safeguards be debated sensibly if nobody knows how well existing ones are working?

Gambling companies can largely blame themselves for the increased scrutiny they are under because their attempts to self-regulate in the golden age after betting tax was scrapped in 2001 and the online boom that followed were somewhere between woeful and non-existent.

But if measures to bring them under control go too far, which is what mandatory stake restrictions for all bettors would represent, there is a danger that those who enjoy a bet without putting themselves at risk would have their enjoyment unnecessarily spoilt.

Drastically capping the amount an individual could deposit into an account would risk a rise in illegal onshore betting and potentially cause punters to seek to bet with unregulated offshore digital companies.

Until people are limited to a specific number of cigarettes or alcoholic drinks a week, it would be unfair to tell those who can bet perfectly responsibly that they can only wager a certain amount.

Against that, a good way of bookmakers showing they are vehemently against obligatory stake restrictions would be for them to stop applying arbitrary stake restrictions to customers who bet profitably.

TV viewers want to see action not flourishes

When the awful effects of Coronavirus are rammed home to you 24/7 by the media it does at least teach you what is and isn’t worth getting annoyed about.

I’m pleased to have reached a state whereby losing the remote control between the sofa cushions, getting done by a short head or having to wait for the VAR to make up his mind no longer causes my blood pressure to soar.

But one small thing still manages to get my goat every time, and that is TV directors of football matches who fail to keep it simple, as evidenced in stunningly irritating fashion during Amazon’s coverage of Palace versus Burnley on Monday.

If directing live football is an art, this was one of those pictures created by a toddler comprising random splodges of paint that a parent feels obliged to affix to the door of the refrigerator.

It was a horrific mess. Camera angles changed every other second in a hopelessly disorienting manner, and if we managed to see as much as 80 per cent of the action I will be surprised, as replays butted into the coverage on an infuriatingly regular basis.

Throw in the lingering shots of managers, substitutes and various other club officials that were foisted upon viewers when it was clear the game was still going on and it added up to a completely intolerable experience.

I have no idea what possesses anyone to think we would rather see six seconds of Mark Bright grinning in row K than be allowed to follow the match ball’s trajectory, but these directors who feel the need to muck around so much are clearly not football fans.

Cameras attached to drones have provided a fascinating new aspect to television coverage, especially when it comes to wildlife and nature programmes, and they have had their benefits in sport too.

But on Monday the drone cam was an annoying tool that made trying to follow what little live action we were allowed to see even more difficult. At one point we were transferred from the main position to an aerial shot high above Selhurst Park as a goal kick was being taken.

Then we were suddenly watching from the pitch-side camera before, seconds later, we flicked back to the main angle. It was completely impossible to know what was going on and yet another glaring example of how the director was far more interested in letting us know how clever they were than in just playing it simple and allowing us to follow the action from a fixed position.

I don’t mind the odd shot of the bench or the stands when there is a drinks or injury break, but it should be a golden rule that if the ball is in play we should be shown nothing but the game itself.

The replays were endless. Scuffed shots that trickled tamely into the keeper’s gloves were shown three times or more, at absurdly slow speeds, followed by an additional image of the shooter’s rueful expression, all while we could hear from the shouts of the players and from the sidelines that the game was continuing.

I was once told these cutaways and changes of angle are known as directors’ flourishes. I was also patronisingly told by a TV bigwig that I didn’t understand how television works when I objected to the outrageous act of zooming in on the leading horse in the closing stages when lots of us want to know how our each-way bets are getting on.

Well, the fact is this: in TV, as in any industry, the customer is always right, and when it comes to watching football every customer I know just wants to be able to watch the game itself.

This is not just a problem that was limited to Monday’s match. It happens far too often and must be eradicated. If these arrogant directors want to understand how people follow football, they should be made to sit next to spectators when they are readmitted to grounds and watch what they are watching. That’ll be the ball.

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