God says no to gaming adverts
“Prime Minister Gordon Brown will soon ditch plans that would allow gambling companies to advertise on television and radio, according to reports from the UK’s Times newspaper. The change of policy was indicated by new culture secretary James Purnell, who, responding to comments from Church leaders and opposition groups which argued that advertising would lead to a rise in problem gambling, said that there would be a ‘thorough review of all the evidence’.” (source ATEonline read full article here)Im wondering why God has honed in on this issue, surely there are more important things he/she (ohh controversial) could be doing, like ridding the world of poverty, war, disease and East Enders.
According to GameCare.org
“Results from the British Gambling Prevalence Survey (press release 8th June 2000) 72% of pop (about 33 million adults) gambled in some form within the past year.53% (c 24 million) gambled in the week prior to the interview
(does any one else find this bit amusing, I have an image of 24 million people stampeding to their local bookies upon hearing about a pending gambling survey that they had been asked to participate in, all in the name of research of course!)
Problem gambling is statistically associated with the following socio-demographic factors: Male, parental problem with gambling, low income group. Also, divorce/separation is significantly associated.
The statistics are misleading, of 33 million adults, how many of them have a gambling problem this statistic is absent. Addiction is addiction, be it smoking, drugs, alcohol, we all have addictions of one kind or another. I don’t want to take away the fact that some people really do have a serious problem re gambling and I will always promote responsible gaming. But let’s keep this in perspective and leave hypocrisy and god out of this. If the Church wants to take the moral high ground and ban gaming adverts then 99.9% of all other advertising should come under the spotlight too.
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