THEY'RE BACKING LOSERS AND WE'LL PAY THE PRICE

Rolf Johnson blasts unelected officials meddling with gambling regulations while the 'impotent' BHA stand aside

- Rolf Johnson

Worldwide, governments are intruding on people’s lives. It’s called ‘populism’ – crude appeals by rabble-rousers to ordinary people ‘ground down’ by elites.

Gambling is a release from the daily grind with the hope (mainly vain ones) of escape from a mundane existence. In his dystopian political novel ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ George Orwell wrote: “Gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them (the masses) in control was not difficult”. He was talking about the ‘proles’ – you and me.

The Gambling Commission took the gestation period of a baby elephant and 250 dense pages to tell their story – which was surely mapped out before they started, it was obvious; the masses were in need of control.

The review will not win literary awards, for fiction or non-fiction, sagging under such chapter headings as: ‘Unaffordable losses’, ‘Frictionless enhanced spending checks’, ‘Triggers’ (no, not the horse), ‘Harmful binges’ and ‘Protecting vulnerable minorities while not impinging on the rights of a responsible majority’.

Orwell put it succinctly: “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

The bottom line of the review encourages government to grab me by my financial affairs and squeeze my opportunities to bet – which defeats the whole object, my right to make decisions.

Demonizing betting strikes at the heart of British (or any other) democracy. “Having a bet is the last democratic act” – Phil Bull, founder of Timeform. He never said truer words.