IT'S A GAMBLE

Check out this story on the BBC's web site this morning, It soon got buried as the day went on.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6443043.stm

First up I've no problem with gambling. I've bet on horses, the odd political flutter, fruit machines occasionally etc. However, this news that the government is to allow the gambling industry to start advertising is to my mind bad news. But why have they allowed it?

Simple. With the reduction in cigarette tax revenue that will follow the smoking ban in England and Wales they've got to make up the shortfall somewhere. Cynically, I believe, that the easing of restrictions on advertising is also being introduced to help offset the gaming industry's frustrations with the fact that taxes against online gambling will not be lower than those levied on 'bricks and mortar' gambling.

Would anyone have thought that a Labour government would have been so pro gambling, so anxious to see super casino's, so keen to see online betting going through the roof here in the UK. Of course they dress it all up with words like, "well if we don't allow it here it will go offshore and then we won't be able to police it."

I'm not one of those who are into protecting the vulnerable from the vice that is gambling. I'm just annoyed with the hypocrites that we call a government.