{"id":1467,"date":"2007-01-16T18:21:39","date_gmt":"2007-01-16T18:21:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/?p=1467"},"modified":"2025-07-10T08:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T07:59:10","slug":"why-government-is-addicted-to-gambling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/why-government-is-addicted-to-gambling\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Government is Addicted to Gambling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>According to the Government\u2019s own figures, Britons gambled \u00a37 billion pounds in 1996. In 2002, however, they gambled away \u00a316 billion, while in 2005 the figure reached a staggering \u00a348 billion. On 22 July 2005, Leo McKinstry noted in the Daily Telegraph that 46 percent of the UK population now indulge in some form of betting (this does not even include the national lottery).<\/p>\n

In online gambling alone, Britons are now spending more than \u00a35 billion a year. That is more than our nation\u2019s annual budget on defence and transport combined.<\/p>\n

In May, the charity GamCare announced a 40 per cent rise in the number of people seeking help with problem gambling. In Britain alone, it is estimated, there are 300,000 people who suffer from gambling addiction problems.<\/p>\n

Faced with these remarkable figures, the obvious question is, why does the Government want to encourage even more gambling?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The UK gambling industry may be harmful to families and communities, but it has been a goldmine for the Labour Government. In 2001, our lawmakers abolished tight restrictions on the gambling industry. At the same time, Gordon Brown replaced the traditional duty on all betting transactions with a 15 per cent tax on all gambling company\u2019s profits. This has enabled the Treasury to benefit greatly from the UK gambling epidemic. Researchers from the University of Trent estimated that upcoming changes in gaming laws will provide the National Treasury with an extra \u00a33 billion a year.<\/p>\n

Government\u2019s rich friends have also greatly benefited. On 23 April, The Times reported that Britain\u2019s gambling boom has fuelled a 20% increase in the combined wealth of the country\u2019s super-rich \u2013 \u2018an extraordinary tripling in wealth of the country\u2019s 1,000 richest people under Labour\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n

Australian Treasury Becomes Addicted to Gambling<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\u2018If Jowell and her new friends have their way,\u2019 wrote Nick Cohen in the New Statesman, \u2018there\u2019s a fair chance that Britain will end up like Australia . As controls on fruit-machines were lifted Budd-style, the share of Australians \u2019 disposable income thrown away on \u2018pokies\u2019, as they are called, grew from 1.8 per cent in 1990 to 3.6 per cent in 2000. Australians lose about \u00a35bn each year by gambling, or \u00a3350 for every adult \u2013 double what the government spends on universities. Church groups have monitored the divorces, bankruptcies and suicides that have followed. But state governments are dependent on gambling taxes \u2013 New South Wales gets 10 per cent of its revenue from taxes on pokie players. If they clean up gambling, how will they make up that shortfall?\u2019<\/p>\n


\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Further Reading<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Gambling vs. Scripture<\/a><\/p>\n

Why Government is Addicted to Gambling<\/a><\/p>\n

BMA Warns of Gambling Epidimic<\/a><\/p>\n

Gambling and Government Corruption<\/a><\/p>\n

Gambling and the Community<\/a><\/p>\n

All Articles About Gambling<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to the Government\u2019s own figures, Britons gambled \u00a37 billion pounds in 1996. In 2002, however, they gambled away \u00a316 billion, while in 2005 the figure reached a staggering \u00a348 billion. On 22 July 2005, Leo McKinstry noted in the Daily Telegraph that 46 percent of the UK population now indulge in some form of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[184],"tags":[170],"class_list":["post-1467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uk-christian-constitution","tag-casinos"],"aioseo_notices":[],"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Robin","author_link":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/author\/robin\/"},"rttpg_comment":1,"rttpg_category":"UK Christian Constitution<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"According to the Government\u2019s own figures, Britons gambled \u00a37 billion pounds in 1996. In 2002, however, they gambled away \u00a316 billion, while in 2005 the figure reached a staggering \u00a348 billion. On 22 July 2005, Leo McKinstry noted in the Daily Telegraph that 46 percent of the UK population now indulge in some form of…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1467"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35050,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1467\/revisions\/35050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.christianvoice.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}