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And the odds are…

Anyone familiar with old Hollywood gangster movies will remember those dimly lit, smoke-filled casinos swarming with gun-toting, cigar-chomping men flush with the day’s loot and set to gamble it all away. And when the money — and luck — ran out, they trotted off into darkness to prepare for another day. Gangster movies may have gone out of fashion and modern-day casinos are less seedy than in the days of Buch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid but gambling is t hriving. Welcome to Britain, which is witnessing a gambling boom — fuelled by liberal licensing laws and new technology. It has gone online and how. There is new fangled touch-screen roulette accessible on 24,500 terminals across the country. According to The Guardian, video-roulette takes an estimated £650 million a year — “a sum almost matching the conventional casino industry’s entire takings.” It is also the single biggest source of loss for British gamblers. The Gambling Commission has identified 250,000 Britons as “problem gamblers” — mostly those hooked on video-roulette.

A character in Mario Puzo’s novel Fools Die says of another: “He was a degenerate gambler…That is, a man who gambled simply to gamble and must lose.” That seems largely true of British gamblers judging from their astonishing propensity to lose. Experts estimate they lose more than £9 billion a year — an increase of £2 billion since online gambling came into vogue in 1999. Gambling has long been a part of British social life — the original Gambling Act dates back to 1845 — but it has moved on from the time a visit to the race course was the ultimate betting adventure. The new Gambling Act, which came into force on September 1, allows the creation of more regional casinos and bigger slot machine payouts. Also, for the first time, gambling operators will be able to advertise their wares on radio and television.

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