Article
Addiction
Comment
Football
Sport
6 min read

An irresponsible gamble

Out-of-date law and human nature mean sports betting is more than harmless fun – it ruins lives, argues Sam Tomlin.

Sam Tomlin is a Salvation Army officer, leading a local church in Liverpool where he lives with his wife and children.

The edge of a football pitch showing an advertising hoarding with a betting brand name on it.
Lars Schmidt, via Wikimedia Commons.

On 21st April 2021 husband and father of two young children Luke Ashton took his own life. Suicide is the biggest cause of death for men under 50 in the UK, but this suicide had a particular source. As recounted by his widow and now anti-gambling campaigner Annie, Luke developed a gambling disorder linked to his support of Leicester City and football gambling more generally. Getting furloughed in the pandemic exacerbated the problem and he succumbed to aggressive advertising on his smart phone, losing more and more money to the point of despair and no return. 

I am not surprised to hear of stories like Luke’s. That’s because I am a Salvation Army officer. Some may view the pledge to give up all forms of gambling when you join its ranks as archaic and over-the-top, but this insistence by the Salvation Army, which was founded in the 1800’s, was a response to the devastation to lives addiction can cause. Far from being a thing of the past, gambling continues to wreak havoc, especially in poor communities like the one I live and serve in today. I have had personal items stolen and pawned to fund gambling addictions and have heard of people losing thousands of pounds in a few hours.  

Recently our church was part of a local campaign to stop an iconic building from being turned into a cashino, something which we and others in our community knew could have a devastating impact. Thankfully the company withdrew the application, probably because of local opposition, but areas of high socio-economic deprivation like ours are always under such threat. 

If you force young people to endorse addictive products, don’t be surprised if they use them.

I have friends who gamble on sport and tell me it is just harmless fun. It makes the experience more exciting when you have money on it, they say, something sports betting companies focus on in their advertising. While not every gambler is a problem gambler (Public Health England estimates there are 2.2 million who either are problem gamblers or are at risk of addiction), I am not convinced that it is harmless fun for two main reasons. 

Firstly, the risk of ‘harmless’ gambling turning into problem gambling is not adequately managed by UK legislation. The 2005 Gambling Act refers more to gambling by post than online gambling and was passed at a time before smart phones. This legislation, intended to boost the economy through liberalising gambling laws, has allowed sports gambling to spiral out of control; 40% of Premier League clubs are sponsored by a betting company with many more in lower divisions. Concerns have been raised about transparency on behalf of these betting companies and it seems clear that these companies exploit the Premier League’s global profile to reach potential customers in countries like China where gambling advertising is banned. Aston Villa recently responded to a supporter backlash against a new sponsorship deal but made it clear that money talks: for clubs outside the top six (who can attract significantly greater deals), betting firms offer ‘twice as much financially as non-gambling companies.’ 

My team, Bristol City, had a gambling sponsor for many years until this season – although ironically children’s shirts had the sponsor changed in a tacit acknowledgement of potential harm. Hypocrisy in football betting runs much deeper though. Ivan Toney the Brentford striker currently faces a lengthy ban for a breach of the FA’s betting rules, but as The Big Step campaign (led by people harmed by gambling) pointed out – with various pictures of Toney receiving awards and shirts with gambling sponsors on them - ‘If you force young people to endorse addictive products, don’t be surprised if they use them.’ 

It is almost impossible to watch a match on TV without being bombarded with free bet offers and the latest deals with former players enticing fans to gamble their money with a few simple clicks on their phones. One recent study questions whether it is possible to gamble responsibly in an age of smart phones, and outlines significant potential harm even for ‘low and moderate risk gamblers — including relationship problems, being distracted, lost opportunities across work and personal life, secretive behaviours, and a compulsion to open and continually re-engage with the app.’ 

A review of the Gambling Act is currently being carried out, but frustration is growing as publication is delayed. While a blanket prohibition on gambling would neither be practical or desirable, campaigners hope that steps will be taken to restrict gambling advertising in much the same way that advertising for smoking has been banned. The gambling industry cite the contribution gambling brings to the economy, but a report by the Social Market Foundation suggested that tighter regulation could actually boost the economy and in 2016 it was estimated that gambling addiction cost the economy £1.2bn a year. For a society built on an understanding of ‘freedom,’ however, as defined by challenging anything that might hinder our individual wills, gambling may constitute the example par excellence of the confluence of social and economic liberalism. Any significant change to legislation will be hard-won. 

The second reason is that gambling promises more than it can ever actually deliver. This is why it so often ends in harmful addiction – it can never truly satisfy what are ultimately spiritual needs, so it continues to draw you further and further in until you are no longer in control but it controls you. 

There are perhaps three main reasons people gamble: the desire to win money, the social aspect and the thrill or excitement. There is no doubt that gambling offers the possibility of fulfilment, to some degree, for all these things: occasionally people win large sums of money, it can make sport more exciting and help make the social experience more fun. 

We are indeed made for community and the communal enjoyment of sport.

As Christians see it, however, gambling offers an unreliable and ultimately unsatisfying route to fulfilling these desires. The Bible warns us about the love of money and encourages honest work as opposed to chance for earning what we need to live It also points to the importance of charity and justice for those who do not have enough. We are made for community and the communal enjoyment of sport is a gift from God (as I have written about in the past). It is perfectly possible, however, to enjoy sport without gambling – really supporting and following a team or player comes with enough ups and downs to produce a wide range of emotions; I have cried, bitten my nails, hidden my head in my hands and hugged random strangers often during one single game. It could be argued that even non-problem gambling contributes to fund an industry that demonstrably preys on vulnerable people, failing the command to love our neighbour. 

We are also created to experience thrill and excitement beyond the mundane aspects of everyday life, but the greatest drama according to the Christian faith is found in being caught up in God’s redemption of the world, ‘reconciling all things to himself’ as we read in the New Testament. As many Christians will testify – even the most exciting Hollywood film is a pale imitation of the excitement and drama of giving up your life to follow the way of Jesus, and this is certainly true of the fleeting and temporary thrills experienced through gambling. 

Unlike some religions which want to supress desire, the Christian faith affirms desire as a good thing. The question is, what our desire is aimed at. Augustine once said that our hearts are restless until they find rest in God. Created things or activities like sex, possessions, money or experiences are good when enjoyed in the right context, but when – like with gambling - they promise more than they can deliver, more often than not it ends in dissatisfaction and potentially even disaster as Luke Ashton’s story tragically demonstrates.  

Article
Assisted dying
Care
Comment
Easter
5 min read

I know who will be most affected by legalising assisted dying

Contemplating lent revives hard memories and raises fresh fears.

Ryan is an ordained Priest in the Church of England, currently serving in south London. 

A close up of a forehead bearing an ash cross marked on it.
Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash.

“What’s that - a face tattoo?” 

These were the words of one person as I walked past them on the streets on a recent Wednesday, with the ashes of last year’s burnt palm-branches placed across my forehead in the shape of the cross.  

The cross has been a symbol of hope for over two millennia; that even in the most painful of circumstances, darkness does not have the final say, including in death.  

As a society, we don’t really talk about death that much. Margot Robbie’s Barbie was the quintessential party-pooper when she pondered: 

 “do you guys ever think about dying?”. 

It’s no fun to dwell on death and dying, and for many of us, we put it off as long as we can. That all changed last year with the introduction of the assisted dying bill into the Houses of Parliament. Our national attention was, for a rare moment, captured by death.  

As a parish priest, I’ve seen the finality of burying someone into the ground. I’ve seen the sadness in the eyes of those trying to grieve. 

The words of Ash Wednesday, which remind us that we are ‘but dust, and to dust we shall return’ are echoed in the famous words that the priest recites in those last moments of burial, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’. In that moment, amongst the bereaved, there is no escaping the inevitability of death. It is the ultimate statistic, 1 in 1 die. 

Whilst death is of course universal and will affect us all, the impact of this assisted dying bill could have consequences for some of the most vulnerable in society.  

As I reflect on my time as a Priest in East London, this is not abstract theory, but something I lived with each day. I served amongst a hugely diverse, vibrant, community in one of the poorest parts of the city. As I try to picture some the people I’ve walked alongside, I know it is these lives that will be most affected.  

One of the reasons I have concerns about the bill is the prospect of these people being coerced into ending their own lives prematurely, by a world that has already told them their lives are of little value. There are already huge disparities in access to the current provision of palliative care at the end of life, particularly amongst people of colour, the disabled and the poor.  

Of the 500,000 people who die each year, 100,000 do not access the care they need. This number is skewed towards ethnic minorities and those who come from poorer backgrounds.  

There is much confusion and misinformation about what end-of-life care even is. Research conducted by Marie Curie shows that 1 in 5 people from an ethnic minority background believe Palliative Care is actually Euthanasia.  

We only need to look at what has happened around the world when the ‘right to die’ becomes a duty to die. Even with the best of intentions, other jurisdictions show us that safeguards rapidly deteriorate and those who are already vulnerable become even more so.  

I worry that the way in which this bill is being handled - rushed through, little time being given to properly chew over the profound consequences it may have - reflects the wider way we view death. 

By trying to provide a ‘choice’ for a certain group of people, the consequence will be taking away real choice from those who already have little. 

Yet we know that for those who do access it, palliative care can be hugely effective in improving their quality of life, and for some, they can even outlive their prognosis. During Ash Wednesday’s service, I met an elderly gentleman who was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in 2019. He was told he had five months to live. He described every day of his six-year survival since as a ‘miracle’, his eyes filled with evident joy.  

Such a blessing stands in stark contrast to the lonely final days of my 96-year-old great grandmother. She was suddenly taken ill during the Covid-19 pandemic and was frantically rushed to a hospital. Amidst the chaos, exasperated by the restrictions against seeing family that were in place at the time, I distinctly remember confused conversations about placing her in a care home for her final days. It was clear she needed a lot of specialist attention, more than our family could provide ourselves.  As she was discharged to stay with our aunt, she never did reach that care home, as she died at home. She was buried in our local cemetery, with our family watching on Zoom.  

My final memory of my great-grandmother will be the FaceTime call we shared when she was taken to hospital, with the poor data connection and shaky picture. I am so grateful for the few family members who were able to be by her side when she died, but I’ve often wondered whether she fully received the care she actually needed during those final days, in the way she needed it.  

What my great-grandmother didn’t have a lot of at the end of her life was time.  

That’s also true for this bill. Concerns have been raised that only five hours of debate were given to this Bill in the chamber, comparatively short for a change in the law of this magnitude.  

I worry that the way in which this bill is being handled- rushed through, little time being given to properly chew over the profound consequences it may have- reflects the wider way we view death.  

Do we view death - and indeed the dying- as something to be shoved to one side, not spoken about in the hopes we can avoid its impact? Or do we view death as an important moment to review who and what matters most in life?  

Perhaps for some, the fact that Christians devote a period of 40 days to dwell on death may be one of the mysteries of faith. However, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea after all.  Death may bring with it fear, grief and pain and so we tend to avoid it. But do we risk missing out on much more? As we head into Easter, the cross still serves as a powerful reminder that, especially in death, Hope can be found, that Good has triumphed over evil, and Light shines even in the darkest of places.  

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