Gambling Should Be Banned Debate

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There are increasing calls for a certain type of gaming machine – which some critics have dubbed the 'crack cocaine of gambling' – to be banned. The debate continues to rage over whether or not gambling should be a legal way for adults to entertain themselves. Gambling can take many forms, ranging from traditional and online casino play and poker tournaments to playing bingo and betting on the ponies. There’s a new cat in casino townSuperCat Casino! Check out what this casino loving feline has in store for you in Should Gambling Be Banned Debate our casino review! Get 60 Free Spins No Deposit on Gonzo’s Quest! This no deposit bonus is exclusive to new SuperCat customers.

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Did you know that 40% of all problem gamblers started gambling before they were seventeen? Or that problem gambling causes the most suicides out of all the recognized addictions? Even with these facts, the most startling truth is that not one federal dollar, out of the billions collected in gambling taxes, has been spent to treat or help problem gamblers. Gambling is the activity or practice of playing at a game of chance for money or other stakes. Activities that are considered gambling are sports and race bets, lotteries, games like blackjack and poker, and casino games like slots and roulette. Bingo and raffles are technically gambling, but there are no major concerns about them, so they are not included here. Gambling has been legalized by many states, but just because it is does not make it right. Even though gambling is legal, it should not be because of its harmful economic, governmental, and social effects.
There are many detrimental economic effects of gambling, but there are two major ones: it siphons money from other industries, and states attempt to use lotteries to boost income. Gambling takes money from consumers that would otherwise be spent in an important industry or charity. Instead, it is essentially thrown away in hopes of getting rich quick. The removal of money from other industries often causes businesses to go bankrupt, therefore creating more unemployed people. You could argue that casinos create jobs, but those jobs do not make enough money to really support a family. The other economic problem that gambling creates is the use of lotteries. States typically use lotteries to make more money, but it is nowhere near as effective as other methods that are in use. The state makes 40% of the money that is put into lotteries, while they make 99% of the money that goes into taxes. Also, sources say that since the poor buy so many more lottery tickets than everyone else, the lotteries have become a tax on the poor and economically disadvantaged. The economic effects may be bad, but the governmental and social effects are far more hurtful.
There are a few different damaging effects that gambling has on the government, but they fall into two categories: the government’s role and illegal activity. The government’s role in gambling is not what it should be. Drugs and gambling are both known to be self-destructive, yet drugs are banned and gambling is legalized? To the people that are compulsive gamblers, gambling is a drug to them, so it should be illegal like all other drugs. The other poor role the government has in gambling is that the government gets a cut of the profits from it in the form of taxes. As it was mentioned earlier, the poor and lower-middle class gamble more, so it is essentially a tax on the poor. Illegal activity is another damaging governmental effect of gambling. Since betting on sports and races are legal, it has become far easier for organized crime to make money off of fixed sporting events and racing. From a sports standpoint, it makes “point-shaving” scandals a potentially larger issue, and can take away from the integrity of the game. Additionally, in areas where gambling is legalized, illegal gambling increases. Since people think it is okay to gamble, they now go to an illegal gambling location so that their winnings, if any, are not taxed by the government. The destructive governmental and economical effects of gambling are horrible, but the social effects are the worst of all.
The harmful social effects of gambling are it forces the poor to stay poor, compulsive gamblers bring massive problems, and gambling can ruin lives and families. Gambling at casinos and in lotteries have terrible odds of winning, but the poor, who desperately need the money, try time and time again in hopes of getting lucky to pull out of their economic problems. However, they rarely win, and the amount of money that they pour in forces them stay poor. Even if you are not poor and you start to gamble constantly, you will become poor very quickly. Another harmful social effect of gambling is the presence of compulsive gamblers. Compulsive, or problem, gamblers are people who are addicted to gambling. Gambling is a drug to them, and they cannot stop gambling, no matter the consequences. A study showed that most compulsive gamblers started during their teen years, and that they are in close to $80,000 in debt. Because of the staggering amount of debt they are in, they are a huge burden to their families. The last harmful social effect of gambling is it destroys families. The amount of debt that a compulsive gambler gets into puts way too much strain on the rest of the family to help him or her out of debt. If you are married to a compulsive gambler, it is like being married to a hard-core drug addict, they are forced to throw away money to satisfy their addiction. Unfortunately, sometimes the debt is too much, and the spouse will divorce, shattering the family. The social effects of gambling are the worst, but all the effects of gambling are awful.
Unfortunately for us, gambling is legal in almost every state, allowing these hurtful effects to exist. Even though gambling is legal, it should not be because of its harmful economic, governmental, and social effects. If you are considering gambling sometime, think about what you are supporting, and how it could ruin your life.

Gambling Should Be Banned Debate Against

© Andy G., Phoenix, AZ

Watching sport on TV may not exactly be a healthy activity, but it should at least do more good than harm. Yet viewers are exposed to all manner of advertising and promotional messages extolling the dubious-but-seductive virtues of alcohol, fatty foods and sugary drinks.

Gambling Should Be Banned Debate

But it is gambling, especially online and mobile, that has come into focus as sport’s most potentially damaging byproduct. In 2013, the Gillard government banned the live spruiking of odds thanks to the barefaced over-reach of Tom Waterhouse and Channel Nine.

Federal, state and territory governments have just signed up to a new National Consumer Protection Framework to help online problem gamblers.

Now the Turnbull government, while charging the networks about A$90 million less for spectrum access, has banned gambling advertising and promotion on TV for the duration of sports contests until an 8.30pm watershed.

This move stimulated vigorous resistance from sports, media corporations and betting companies. In doing so, they have exposed the ethically questionable foundations of their multiple mutual dependencies.

How sport and TV became ‘addicts’

Genuine sports lovers, and those who simply wish to protect the vulnerable from harmfully manipulative messages, may wonder how sport and TV became so dependent on gambling.

There has been betting and wagering on sport as long as someone kept the score. Variously, the practice has been banned, regulated, and taxed. It can be respectable, as in the case of a Melbourne Cup flutter; dodgy, when it involves unlicensed SP betting; and downright criminal, especially when syndicates manipulate results during betting plunges.

But what is unprecedented about gambling on sport today is its astonishing visibility. Where once the logos of betting companies and the odds on sporting outcomes could be largely confined to those interested in such things, they are now impossible to avoid.

Naming rights of stadiums and the surfaces within them, from corner-post flags to players’ bodies, carry gambling company logos. TV screens in and outside those stadiums promote gambling, as do streetscapes and other media.

A specific set of developments placed gambling at the heart of contemporary sport and media.

As sport became industrial and commercial in the 20th century, it had a clear interest in doing more than play the role of host to the gambling parasite. By progressively integrating sponsorship by and of gambling into its business model, professional sport made itself more attractive to its main paymaster – the media, especially TV.

Just as sport had become deeply dependent on the media by selling its broadcast rights for an ever more escalating cost, TV needed sport to attract advertising, sponsorship and subscription revenue.

Pay-TV wrested a good deal of premium sport from commercial free-to-air TV (which had previously seized it from public-service TV). It was prevented from monopolising it only by government intervention in the market through the anti-siphoning laws.

But as the proliferation of channels and digital platforms like Netflix fragmented free-to-air audiences and undermined broadcast pay-TV subscriber bases, sport became even more important as media content.

A good first step

Sport’s ever more prominent place in the media enhanced its allure for bookmakers to advertise their wares as an increasingly legitimised arm of the sports industry. This has intensified sport and media reliance on gambling revenue – and so on.

There is no end to this logic of accumulation from the viewpoint of those who benefit from it. The sport-media-gambling triumvirate will push it to its limits.

Mandatory mantras to “please gamble responsibly”, squeezed in at the end of cleverly targeted messages, are ritual box-ticking gestures at their ineffective worst. Industry bodies like the recently founded Responsible Wagering Australia, led by former federal Labor minister Stephen Conroy, offer limited concessions while trying to consolidate their prime position.

Gambling Should Be Banned Debate

I heard a clear sense of public disquiet about sport-related gambling when researching the place of sport in the lives of residents of greater western Sydney. Several people I interviewed raised it unprompted as a topic of concern.

It is ironic that at a time when the federal government is trying to restrict the advertising of gambling during sport on TV, it is simultaneously trying to assert its vision of Australian values and culture.

Gambling Should Be Banned Debate Tonight

The advertisers who urge sport’s ready use as a vehicle for gambling artfully harness traditional Australian characteristics to home in on their most promising targets. They appreciate that many young men like to see themselves as larrikins who laugh off attempts by social engineers to control them. So, they infuse their advertisements and promotional videos with the intoxicating flavour of youthful resistance.

The children who are repetitively exposed to those same messages will not have missed the invitation, when their time comes, to join this expensive club for irreverent smart alecs.

Gambling Should Be Banned Debate Arguments

Knowing that association with sport clubs is widely celebrated in Australia, in a perverse distortion of sport club identification online sport betting agencies present signing on with them as membership.

In a rearguard action against tightening controls on gambling during sport broadcasts, sports with billion-dollar turnovers offer up community sport as the sacrificial Australia Day lamb if their earnings are curtailed. But there is little appreciation of the damage done to those same communities when wages, rent and food are charred on the problem gambling BBQ.

TV networks protest that restricting the bird’s-eye view they afford to gambling products sold mainly by overseas betting corporations will impair their capacity to tell local stories. They do not seem concerned that their actions will help produce more narratives of the human troubles and tragedies of too many gamblers.

Should Gambling Advertising Be Banned Debate

TV companies complain, with some justification, that they are sitting ducks for national regulation when compared with the global online and social media free-for-all. But they, too, have a major presence there through their own websites, Facebook pages and Twitter handles.

TV may be easier to regulate than some other media, but it is still the dominant sport medium. It is the most important place to start when controlling the advertising of gambling through sport, but it is not the end game.

Gambling Should Be Banned Debate Moderators

A more comprehensive system of gambling advertising control across media is imperative to prevent current and future generations seeing sport as a medium for gambling.