UK betting giant's unlawful marketing kept suicidal gambler hooked

UK tech job pay is very bimodal and unfortunately both modes suck in different ways...

In the major mode, it feels like 90% are gambling, crypto or traditional finance. The remaining 10% are US tech companies getting a bit more for their money over here. Not sure how much longer that last subcategory will last. Most of these jobs will leave you wanting a good scrub in a scalding shower. Even the US ones.

The minor mode are where you'll find roles at UK-based tech companies, non-tech companies requiring programmers, web developers, etc. etc. The scope is vast and the pay is meh... and maybe my sample size is far too small and time-biased here, but I find the people at these places are so much more down to Earth, operate in a wider spectrum of fields and life experiences, and are just way more interesting and varied day-to-day than endless tech hype drudgery.

You wouldn't have guessed, but for the last 7 years, I have not been in a job at a minor mode company... and maybe the greener grass is glistening rather brightly right now!

We have a pretty abysmal tech landscape really given our involvement in computing history. It has all been sold off and gradually moved offshore. Europe has a reasonably heathly and open tech industry, albiet at a smaller scale than US, but of course us British are not allowed to play with them any more!

Likewise. I will happily work in the vast majority of legal industries in the UK, they all have varying degrees of social good about them. I might not get a warm fuzzy feeling about all of them, but a job's a job.

But I won't touch gambling, especially in the UK. It a nasty, predatory industry that preys on people. They know they are doing it, but they hide behind BS excuses and empty promises, and time after time investigations clearly show they intentionally goad on problem gamblers.

To be clear, this isn't a moral objection to people gambling. If you enjoy it, and are in control, then have fun. It's the companies, they are scum.

I hate them, but I'd probably work for them. There's a lot to hate about places like big tech, finance, energy, and basically every other sector. It would probably soul crushing, but so is my current job.

Are there any other parasites you wouldn't work for?

I live in a Midwest state that allows gambling completely unrestricted, including apps where you just give a credit card and press a slot machine button and (inevitably) lose all your money.

I also watch the local news each morning as part of my morning routine.

It’s utterly ridiculous how many gambling ads are on tv now. Like outside of election season with political ads, it feels like 9 in 10 ads are for some gambling app. Sometimes a casino app, often sports betting. It feels so dystopian, like if I were an addict it would be seriously triggering me how constant and incessant the ads are. It’s always felt so strange to me that we allow this.

I’ve also had family members lose their livelihoods to gambling apps. They have perfected the addictiveness, giving you free credits if you lose too much, to keep you going. It’s extremely difficult to actually get money out of the apps too. They want you to gamble it all away, but slowly. Of all the things that have changed in this part of the country in my lifetime, this is the most obviously bad one, the one that makes me feel the most ashamed of how bad we’ve collectively let things get.

> I work in advertising and defend tracking, targeting, Meta, etc all the time as largely harmless.

Perhaps tell that to one of my friends that has a shopping addiction. He buys endless amounts of running gear, and then resells it, basically burning thousands of pounds every year. His phone does nothing but show more and more running gear adverts. We've told him to stop but he reckons he doesn't have a problem. No runner needs 30 pairs of trainers a year, or 10 rucksacks etc.

Funny, there is a story on the front page right now demonstrating how harmful ads can be.

https://timsh.org/tracking-myself-down-through-in-app-ads/

Gambling ads are banned in my country but we get bombarded by them on YouTube. Me and a bunch of people I've talked to have reported them many times but nothing happens.

What is bad? Alcohol? Cheap clothes made to be worn a handful times and that shed microplastics all over the place? Gratuitous consumption solely for the purpose of signaling wealth? Political parties that want to restrict people’s rights?

How do you feel about advertising alcohol, Gacha games, MLM businesses and things like that?

£14 billion is the industry revenue. Gambling taxes to the state are £3.3 billion. Gambling harms are costed at £1.77 billion, of which £1 billion is death from suicide and £0.5 billion for depression. Those costs are conservative estimates (the government "expect that the true costs are higher because the lack of evidence meant that it was not possible to cost all types of harms or the wider harms to individuals or society")

In what other industry are those societal harms acceptable?

Source: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gambling-related-...

It’s a really inefficient tax as the net economic loss is well past £14 billion. One argument is gambling is simply something people like to do, but in that case some regulations would be expected.

Where it makes sense is when you’re pulling in outside money from foreigners, but I don’t think many people go to the UK to gamble.

I have made exactly one actual bet for money.

In December 2021 I bet that Donald Trump had lost the US Presidential Election, which he had done the previous month.

Ordinarily of course you can't make bets like that because nobody wants the other side of the bet†, but there were plenty of takers for "No, Donald Trump actually won" so I got paid off, it wasn't a huge profit but it was meaningful.

† There are two ways you could be betting, sometimes you can bet "against the house". A company is trying to adjust the odds such that whoever wins, they end up benefiting, it can be tricky to do this and requires expertise so... the other way is you're betting against other punters like you, which works like the buy/sell orders on a stock exchange and the house just gets a percentage no matter what happens. Political gambling tends to be on the latter basis.

It's pretty rampant in the US too.

I don't think a little gambling is bad, but the endless ads are a huge problem. They should really make all advertising of commonly addictive stuff banned - gambling, alcohol, etc. They should also do a better job of educating kids in school about the dangers and tricks.

They were going you $100+ to open an account, or doing a deposit match up to $1k here. It's exactly what drug dealers do to get people hooked or scam artists to con someone - here's a free taste, or a deal that's too good to pass up.

I'm glad it's not just me that's noticed this. I thought it was targeted advertising because I also see lots of 'old people adverts' :)

It's horrific really. I change channels as soon as one of those adverts come on. Premier League football teams are sponsored by them, and I suppose F1 cars probably are as well. But not cigarettes. Then again, I've never seen cigarettes ruin an entire family and for them to end up in financial ruin and without a house.

Someone else called them parasites, and they're not wrong.

That was the government that was supposed to stand up 'for the poor', but allowing a predatory industry to thrive, whose main demographic are 'the poor'.

industry is basically a tax on the government's paid out social services