Oh Dear Roy

My Lord Hattersley doesn't seem to have quite grasped this market thing yet:

To make casinos profitable, new gamblers have to be attracted to their tables. It will be gullible local citizens from Wolverhampton and Hull, not Hong Kong millionaires and the Las Vegas super-rich, whose money the casino owners take home......And who would benefit? Not the citizens of Sutton Coldfield, Bath, Dumfries or any of the other chosen locations. Only the gambling tycoons have anything to gain.

Only the tycoons, eh? So the gamblers, the punters, they don't gain anything? No pleasure? No amusement as they pass their time? No jolt of adrenaline as they win or lose? Stephen might have a word or two to say about that.

What Roy doesn't get is that the only reason people go to casinos is because they perceive that they get something out of it: it's the same with any other trade or purchase. Voluntary exchange only happens if, as and when both parties gain from it.

It may well be that you don't either understand or approve of what gamblers get from their actions (I do, all too well, which is why I don't do it) but we don't any longer run the country on either the ignorance or moral values of Peers.

Thankfully.