3 ms·

I am surprised. Why? well The Uk has two main parties, one of which runs gambling as a way to raise funds... https://lottery.conservatives.com https://lottery

by TheqO 2mo ago

I am surprised. Why? well The Uk has two main parties, one of which runs gambling as a way to raise funds... https://lottery.conservatives.com https://lottery.conservatives.com

dijit 2mo ago
I'm british. The way that gambling companies target the poorest of society feels disgustingly predatory. You can often tell the average income of an area based on how many betfreds and paddy powers there are on the high street.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- rorylawless 2mo ago
  Before leaving Britain, I lived in an area that had a ~50% poverty rate. The number of betting shops, small and large brands, just on the local high street alone was ridiculous. It reduced somewhat as gambling has moved online, however there is clearly still money to be made in bricks and mortar gambling.
  - dofm 2mo ago
    New Labour did that with gambling deregulation. Betting shops have begun to disappear not just because of moving online, but because regulations have finally limited the pernicious power of the fixed-odds betting terminal (FOBT). They were so disgustingly, vampirically profitable they were reason alone to open betting shops in small premises; two members of staff and four FOBTs and any small shop rakes it in. Now they finally do not make enough profit for that to be worth it. Oddly, betting shops aren't in any planning categories and AFAIK never have been, so whenever you see one, it was specifically and individually approved. Which should tell you a thing or two about the uncomfortable overlap between small-scale commercial landlords and councillors.
    - FireBeyond 2mo ago
      > Which should tell you a thing or two about the uncomfortable overlap between small-scale commercial landlords and councillors. Hah, like in my town, where they are so in bed with each other their families and kids go on vacation together. And then they approve waterfront developments on the side of hills that failed ecological testing and failed traffic assessments (in this case that the local roads could not support the traffic load -and- because of the topology there was no room to increase traffic capacity and the closest you'd be able to do would be eminent-domain'ing ~200 homes to widen a road out to an arterial, for the benefit of the 450 new units. I'd better not give them ideas...) And the local newspaper is so in bed with both that when this approval was announced, the article in the paper mentioned all the opponents by name, got a tepid comment from the town, but couldn't bring themselves once to name the developer (You can find out who it is of course, but the newspaper won't help you, even while publishing their artists renderings). And
Biologist123 2mo ago
Blimey. This surprised me. But I see Labour also run one. I suspect more influential is gambling industry lobbying and sinecures.
dofm 2mo ago
Except that — and I say this as a centre-left sort of person — almost none of this is the Conservatives' fault. Essentially all of the UK's gambling hellscape was triggered by massive deregulation by Tony Blair's first New Labour government from 1997, and subsequent governments have struggled to undo it. UK political donations big enough to win a campaign used to be quite hard to come by. The big single donor money was in alcohol, tobacco or gambling. (The big single-donor money now, clearly, is crypto, though the tories take vape industry money.) Alcohol industry giants like Diageo tend to be politically neutral because they know that really any government could change the law on health grounds. The tobacco giants, at the time, wanted to hold back inevitable regulatory change and backed the Tories — Maggie Thatcher had been a Philip Morris consultant. That left Blair talking to wealthy donors from the gambling industry pushing for widespread deregulation of a modernised, increasingly digital industry. He took the cash where the Tories would not. Successive governments have been trying to claw back from what that decision (combined with a subsequent gambling taxation change) caused. Long term, it has been worse for the UK than any other single Blair policy and it has fully undone many community and health policies he introduced because it allowed the creation of the Fixed Odds Betting Terminal (FOBT), for example: a development so rapacious and predatory it makes drug dealers look like amateurs. It has been very difficult to undo because the deregulation was so massive in scope, and as tobacco tax revenue collapsed after Blair's broadly successful tobacco regulation, the government became increasingly dependent on enormous gambling tax revenue to replace it (including, specifically, FOBT tax revenue). So as much as I would like to blame the Tory government that followed for not doing enough — and they did not do enough, even when presented with clear evidence of FOBT harm — their hands were mostly tied.
Phemist 2mo ago
Not surprising. Brits loooove lotteries. On every scale. My year abroad in the UK, in every social event I attended organized by a student society there would inevitably be left-over budget, which would be taken care of by.. a raffle. Some of these raffles could take 30 min (on an event that lasted ~3 hours). And people would be incredibly excited about it.. Really boggles my mind
- dofm 2mo ago
  I would be wary of generalising from British student society culture to wider British culture. But we would (IMO correctly) observe that while raffles and lotteries are both technically a form of gambling, a raffle is not really a lottery in the conventional sense; it tends to form a more specific social function because there's usually an array of cheap, fun, often slightly absurd prizes from local donors, the prize is not money or a truly high-value thing, they aren't rolling, weekly events, they tend to be all-ages etc. It largely emerges out of British church fête culture. British churches are usually poor, not rich, so a raffle was a way for the vicar to gently shake down local businesses for a set of cheap prizes in return for some gentle advertising and showing off, and a way to get more local small donors and word-of-mouth because you're gently socially shamed into taking and distributing a book of raffle tickets. School communities do it — for much the same reason — just substitute head teacher for vicar. Also the raffle is at the end of the event, so people stay to the end (when Britishness would otherwise see us leaving early)! You have to understand that the naffness of a raffle is very distinct from the brassy, brash idea of a lottery. People groan at the naffness and then take part anyway because it's harmless. Raffles are crap, but they are community crap. (Like the old-fashioned "Beetle drive" fundraiser which is essentially a form of bingo.) You can't really draw a line from the typical social raffle to lottery participation or gambling. Lotteries, raffles, bingo halls, sports betting, online game gambling, all look superficially similar but they aren't (despite the gambling companies' efforts) really the same constituencies. Apart from that, I don't think we're any different to the USA or European countries; we got our National Lottery tradition from the USA and some of our smaller prize lottery companies have been European.
  - Phemist 2mo ago

by TheqO 2mo ago

I am surprised. Why? well The Uk has two main parties, one of which runs gambling as a way to raise funds... https://lottery.conservatives.com https://lottery.conservatives.com

dijit 2mo ago

I'm british. The way that gambling companies target the poorest of society feels disgustingly predatory. You can often tell the average income of an area based on how many betfreds and paddy powers there are on the high street.

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
rorylawless 2mo ago
Before leaving Britain, I lived in an area that had a ~50% poverty rate. The number of betting shops, small and large brands, just on the local high street alone was ridiculous. It reduced somewhat as gambling has moved online, however there is clearly still money to be made in bricks and mortar gambling.
- dofm 2mo ago
  New Labour did that with gambling deregulation. Betting shops have begun to disappear not just because of moving online, but because regulations have finally limited the pernicious power of the fixed-odds betting terminal (FOBT). They were so disgustingly, vampirically profitable they were reason alone to open betting shops in small premises; two members of staff and four FOBTs and any small shop rakes it in. Now they finally do not make enough profit for that to be worth it. Oddly, betting shops aren't in any planning categories and AFAIK never have been, so whenever you see one, it was specifically and individually approved. Which should tell you a thing or two about the uncomfortable overlap between small-scale commercial landlords and councillors.
  - FireBeyond 2mo ago
    > Which should tell you a thing or two about the uncomfortable overlap between small-scale commercial landlords and councillors. Hah, like in my town, where they are so in bed with each other their families and kids go on vacation together. And then they approve waterfront developments on the side of hills that failed ecological testing and failed traffic assessments (in this case that the local roads could not support the traffic load -and- because of the topology there was no room to increase traffic capacity and the closest you'd be able to do would be eminent-domain'ing ~200 homes to widen a road out to an arterial, for the benefit of the 450 new units. I'd better not give them ideas...) And the local newspaper is so in bed with both that when this approval was announced, the article in the paper mentioned all the opponents by name, got a tepid comment from the town, but couldn't bring themselves once to name the developer (You can find out who it is of course, but the newspaper won't help you, even while publishing their artists renderings). And

Biologist123 2mo ago

Blimey. This surprised me. But I see Labour also run one. I suspect more influential is gambling industry lobbying and sinecures.

dofm 2mo ago

Except that — and I say this as a centre-left sort of person — almost none of this is the Conservatives' fault. Essentially all of the UK's gambling hellscape was triggered by massive deregulation by Tony Blair's first New Labour government from 1997, and subsequent governments have struggled to undo it. UK political donations big enough to win a campaign used to be quite hard to come by. The big single donor money was in alcohol, tobacco or gambling. (The big single-donor money now, clearly, is crypto, though the tories take vape industry money.) Alcohol industry giants like Diageo tend to be politically neutral because they know that really any government could change the law on health grounds. The tobacco giants, at the time, wanted to hold back inevitable regulatory change and backed the Tories — Maggie Thatcher had been a Philip Morris consultant. That left Blair talking to wealthy donors from the gambling industry pushing for widespread deregulation of a modernised, increasingly digital industry. He took the cash where the Tories would not. Successive governments have been trying to claw back from what that decision (combined with a subsequent gambling taxation change) caused. Long term, it has been worse for the UK than any other single Blair policy and it has fully undone many community and health policies he introduced because it allowed the creation of the Fixed Odds Betting Terminal (FOBT), for example: a development so rapacious and predatory it makes drug dealers look like amateurs. It has been very difficult to undo because the deregulation was so massive in scope, and as tobacco tax revenue collapsed after Blair's broadly successful tobacco regulation, the government became increasingly dependent on enormous gambling tax revenue to replace it (including, specifically, FOBT tax revenue). So as much as I would like to blame the Tory government that followed for not doing enough — and they did not do enough, even when presented with clear evidence of FOBT harm — their hands were mostly tied.

Phemist 2mo ago

Not surprising. Brits loooove lotteries. On every scale. My year abroad in the UK, in every social event I attended organized by a student society there would inevitably be left-over budget, which would be taken care of by.. a raffle. Some of these raffles could take 30 min (on an event that lasted ~3 hours). And people would be incredibly excited about it.. Really boggles my mind

dofm 2mo ago
I would be wary of generalising from British student society culture to wider British culture. But we would (IMO correctly) observe that while raffles and lotteries are both technically a form of gambling, a raffle is not really a lottery in the conventional sense; it tends to form a more specific social function because there's usually an array of cheap, fun, often slightly absurd prizes from local donors, the prize is not money or a truly high-value thing, they aren't rolling, weekly events, they tend to be all-ages etc. It largely emerges out of British church fête culture. British churches are usually poor, not rich, so a raffle was a way for the vicar to gently shake down local businesses for a set of cheap prizes in return for some gentle advertising and showing off, and a way to get more local small donors and word-of-mouth because you're gently socially shamed into taking and distributing a book of raffle tickets. School communities do it — for much the same reason — just substitute head teacher for vicar. Also the raffle is at the end of the event, so people stay to the end (when Britishness would otherwise see us leaving early)! You have to understand that the naffness of a raffle is very distinct from the brassy, brash idea of a lottery. People groan at the naffness and then take part anyway because it's harmless. Raffles are crap, but they are community crap. (Like the old-fashioned "Beetle drive" fundraiser which is essentially a form of bingo.) You can't really draw a line from the typical social raffle to lottery participation or gambling. Lotteries, raffles, bingo halls, sports betting, online game gambling, all look superficially similar but they aren't (despite the gambling companies' efforts) really the same constituencies. Apart from that, I don't think we're any different to the USA or European countries; we got our National Lottery tradition from the USA and some of our smaller prize lottery companies have been European.
- Phemist 2mo ago