Has gambling become the great British addiction?

When I was 14 my father took me to a bookmaker’s and encouraged me to place a bet. He wanted to show me the futility of gambling, I think. Big mistake. I picked a horse called Maroof at 66/1 in the Queen Elizabeth II stakes at Ascot. My father put on 50p each way. Maroof romped to victory, no problem. ‘I think I’ve just ruined your character,’ said my father, not entirely joking, as he handed over the winnings. He had. I’ll forever associate betting with that triumph – the rush of joy I felt jumping up and down on the cruddy red carpet surrounded by Irish drunks and cigarette smoke. Heaven. We should have put more on.

That was 1994. Britain changed a lot in the years that followed. Along came New Labour, laddism, the rise and rise of the Premier League, the retail internet and smartphones – all of which contributed to an extraordinary explosion in gambling. As Rob Davies writes in Jackpot, the industry ‘inserted itself into so many aspects of our lives’. Britain, he points out, has ‘found itself in thrall to gambling, where it once was not’.

British gamblers now lose around £14 billion every year: that’s four times the annual gross domestic product of Burundi, where funnily enough most forms of gambling are illegal. Gambling now dominates British sport, especially football, because, as that insidious Sky Bet advertisement said: ‘It matters more when there’s money on it.’ We also bet on almost every other human activity: reality TV, Eurovision, politics, financial markets, online gaming and even the war in Ukraine. The gay sex app Grindr, Davies reliably informs us, profits from online casino ads because its clientele is ‘an audience of men often in something of an impulsive mood and literally seeking pleasure’.