Thursday 8 March 2007

Gambling Advertising

The petition is entitled ban gambling advertising via all forms of media and the explanatory notes say
"People can find out about gambling through more obvious means and advertising is not neccessary to support it and draw the most vulnerable members of society into it, i.e. the poor and the young. I grant that gambling is as harmful, if not exceedingly more harmful than cigarette smoking; and so its subsequent associated advertising should be made illegal. Gamblers with problems do not need any further encouragement. In addition this will prevent excerbating problems with new large and super-casinos."

I have either never seen or never noticed advertising for gambling companies particularly, and so I'm afraid my first thought about this petition was "ooh, will that mean $person (names changed to protect the marginally innocent) will have to throw away his increasingly disreputable poker website t-shirt?! Please?" I can't even remember - though I see the t-shirt very often - which site it's advertising; I am clearly blind to such adverts.

More seriously, it doesn't sound like a bad idea. Much as I've vaunted the free market in previous blog posts, advertising is a slightly different matter. As the petitioner says, someone who can use Yellow Pages or Google can find betting shops or websites. So really, the only thing wrong with this petition is that it made my brain do something silly.

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