Gambling losses - oooh, scary!

Tim Worstall, whose site - one of my favourites - has moved here, has this typical post, in which he uses facts and context to put the supposed explosion in gambling losses in perspective.

The Guardian had this to say today:

The money lost by British gamblers will exceed £10bn annually next year - a rise of 50% in nine years, and the biggest jump since the 1960s.

Here's Tim's reaction:

Looks terrible, doesn’t it? Hmmm. Inflation (RPI) was 25% or so over that period. So that’s some of the rise explained. Average earnings rose 45% over the period (OK, I’m using 97 to 2006, because that’s what the calculator allows, but it’s illustrative) so in fact we could say that the rise is purely down to the fact that people have more money and that they are spending it. Doesn’t actually look so bad now, does it? Gambling up 50%, incomes up 45%? As GDP has risen 59% in the period then we might actually say that gambling as a percentage of GDP has fallen, although I’m not sure I’d actually believe that.