![]() ![]() ![]() It soon became clear that vast swathes of Britain’s gambling industry were anything but benign. It was brash, yes, but was it really so different from other pastimes? When I began reporting on the gambling sector almost eight years ago, I had few preconceptions about this seemingly ubiquitous industry. The atmosphere of supposedly harmless fun, even glamour, was infectious. Meanwhile, technological innovation spawned new subcultures, from the online poker boom to in-play betting and betting exchanges. Ladbrokes’ adverts cast punters as swaggering chancers, reminiscent of the opening credits introducing the characters of a Guy Ritchie film. Football fans soon got used to Ray Winstone’s disembodied head floating across the screen at half-time of televised matches, urging prospective customers of Bet365 to “Bet now!”. This step-change was accompanied by two other pivotal factors: the launch of the first iPhone in 2007, an innovation that would put a 24-hour casino in every pocket, and wall-to-wall television coverage of sport. Britain’s bookmakers and online casinos were now to be celebrated as the vanguard of a truly world-leading industry, creating jobs and paying taxes. ![]() The new regulatory landscape meant that gambling could be aggressively advertised, rather than simply tolerated. But the 2005 Gambling Act went much further than that, in line with New Labour’s light-touch approach to business. ![]()
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