The Gambling Industry’s Growing Influence Mirrors Big Tobacco,

Addiction Economy Thought for Today - we are increasingly seeing the Big Gambling industry as pernicious on a par with Big Tobacco in its heyday except less subtle and with far more access and influence in government. Undermining Policy Action is the 5th of our Drivers of the Addiction Economy

Here in the Times on the potential for new tax rises and I dug up the picture they mention of Tessa Jowell promoting the 2005 Gambling Act and recategorising gambling as a leisure industry, which all the media I have seen so far were 100% against and yet still it was passed. She later admitted they got it wrong. Oops too late.

We have an online gambling market almost as big as the US, by far the lowest taxes in Europe and the most lax gambling laws and yet here is a Labour government taxing the poor instead of hammering these companies whose activities have nothing to do with the 'occasional flutter' that the is supposed to be being protected, and whose activities are dragging more and more of us into.

"Westminster has a gambling problem; many MPs are addicted. As we know from last summer, they’ll even bet on the future of their own seats at an election. The betting companies are also among the biggest providers of corporate hospitality, doling out tickets for sporting and cultural events beloved by politicians of all stripes. They are also among the most generous donors, pouring £1.08 million into Labour coffers in the last few years and giving £20,000 to help fund Rachel Reeves’s office in opposition.
That may be why gambling companies do not appear unduly concerned by rumours that Reeves could increase their tax obligations in the looming budget. They know successive Tory and Labour governments have shied away from taking on the industry."

"Jonathan Reynolds, the business secretary, accepted European Championship football tickets from Entain, the company behind Ladbrokes and Sportingbet. Louise Haigh, the transport secretary, enjoyed football match tickets from gambling companies. Sir Keir Starmer’s 2020 leadership campaign received £25,000 from Peter Coates, head of the £7.5 billion company Bet365. Coates’s daughter Denise is now the richest woman in the UK, with a £90 million home in Cheshire, although she is also one of the highest taxpayers. The influential Labour peer Lord Mendelsohn chairs Evoke, the company behind William Hill and 888. Lord Watson of Wyre Forest, the party’s former deputy leader, is a paid adviser to the largest listed gambling company in the world, Flutter Entertainment."


Here's the article with paywall sorry.

https://lnkd.in/ec3wrpZY