The House Always Wins?

Everyone knows the feeling, that cold squeeze of fear that grabs your colon and sets your heart on edge, ready to feel delight or despair… it’s the sensation you feel when you’re ushered into your boss’ office for “a quick word”, when you open the envelope containing your exam results, or when the striker approaches the penalty spot to land the shot that could send your team to the finals.
It’s also the feeling you get when the roulette ball skitters between red and black, when the first three numbers of your lottery ticket come up and you’re waiting for the fourth, or when you hold a straight flush and all bets are in. This is the crucial part of the dizzying thrill of gambling, that glorious half-second when you’re on a knife edge between winning and losing. It’s why so many of us do it; and why some of us are addicted to it.
The Labour government has already made changes to gambling laws in the past few years (allowing the sale of alcohol in casinos for example) and the Gambling Bill to be debated in the commons on Nov 1st will, if successful in its current form, abolish restrictions on the number of casinos and allow for the introduction of ‘super casinos’ with million-pound jackpots and one-armed bandits. Many argue that this will lead to a sharp increase in gambling addiction and personal borrowing. With the national debt of British citizens having just broken the trillion-pound mark, it’s worth wondering why exactly the government are behind the Bill, and why its critics are so vociferously against it.
Labour compares the proposed Gambling Bill to the introduction of the National Lottery in 1994. The Lottery was greeted then with the same criticisms the Gambling Bill has received this week – moral condemnations from church leaders, worries about a ‘tax on the poor’, the same concerns about addiction and borrowing. Yet we have had the National Lottery for 10 years and it has made billions for charities all over the country and provides ‘what if?’ dreams for people of every walk of life. Labour seem to be asking – what’s the difference?
Well, the first difference is that the super casinos are not being set up in the interests of charity. The American entrepreneurs who, we are told, are set to bring Las Vegas-style glamour to our shores are not interested in putting money back into the local communities but more concerned with lining their already bulging pockets. It’s naked capitalism, pure and simple, with the profits all going straight to the owners.
Secondly, the National Lottery works with colossal odds. You have something like a 14 million-to-one chance of winning. Only the most foolhardy of gamblers is going to fritter away hundreds pounds on the longest shot of all. However, casinos work on much smaller odds, have more variety of games, pay out with more regularity and generally bring the dreams of riches closer to your nose. Of course, it’s an illusion. The old adage still rings true – the house always wins. If this weren’t true then why would anyone open a casino?
The ‘tax on the poor’ accusations still stand. Tessa Jowell, the Culture Secretary who has proposed the bill, called such claims “snobbish”. While there is no denying that it is patronising to suggest that under-privileged people are more likely to become gambling addicts, the fact remains that there are those who gamble for pleasure and those who gamble for money. Whether they are “working-class” or not it is they who are most likely to become addicted and they who are most likely to suffer.
Whether Labour have introduced these measures to bring foreign investments to our soil or to ‘give a little fun to the people’ it seems inevitable that the bill in its current form will be shot down in the Commons, perhaps unsurprising given the mauling it has received from the media. This in itself is further evidence of the astonishing unpopularity of Tony Blair’s government which, having long been accused of nanny-state-ism, instead proposes a Bill that relies on the autonomy of the individual only for that to be ripped apart as well. It is telling that on the day after the reading of the Gambling Bill to Parliament, there is a debate on the new guidelines set up by Labour restricting the use of physical force on one’s children, measures that have provoked criticisms of over-protection almost as fierce as those directed towards the House over the Gambling Bill. It seems as if Labour really can’t win at the moment. Will this losing streak continue until May? Perhaps betting on red isn't as safe as once it was.