By Open Door Correspondent "Bernie"
At teatime on the 23rd of June, just a couple of days ago, a frantic week of activity at the Living Room Cardiff came to an end with a tea party and open-microphone afternoon, held to raise money so that the good work of The Living Room can continue. This event raised a significant amount, and all of it will be used to ensure that those who use the services of The Living Room continue to receive the very best help available.
The events had started four days before, with the Living Room Cardiff Annual Lecture. The event this year was held at The Old Library, in The Hayes in Cardiff, and the speaker was Professor Samantha Thomas, of Deakin University, Australia.
Professor Thomas specialises in understanding the range of factors that may contribute to the prevention and reduction of gambling related harm. She has conducted a range of studies in the area of gambling, including the impact of gambling advertising on young people, young men and sports betting, young women's gambling, and factors that may contribute to the normalisation of gambling.
Professor Thomas expanded on an article I wrote for this blog recently, and started by drawing comparisons with the way the tobacco industry sought to promote their products 30, 40, even 50 years ago, and the way the gambling industry uses hard-sell tactics to promote their services today. By issuing a flat denial that tobacco caused cancer, the tobacco industry was able not just to survive, but to prosper in the period between the 1950s and the 1980s. And who remembers those flashy adverts? I know I took to smoking Marlboro because of the cool cowboy image. Thankfully I saw through that one a few years ago...
By seeking to normalise a dangerous and destructive habit, and by using the myriad of technological tools at their disposal in the 21st century, the gambling industry is hoping to draw in our young people and get them hooked on betting. And as their natural guardians, we, the older generations, are to some extent sitting back and letting them get away with it. When was the last time you watched a football match, or a golf tournament, or even a rugby game on the television, and weren’t bombarded with adverts for betting companies in the advert breaks, or even on the advertising hoardings around the ground?
Do you remember how they try and draw us in with offers of free bets and instant payouts? Our children do, and in studies carried out by Professor Thomas, how much they remember, and how normal the idea of gambling seems to them, are really quite terrifying. Some of the children she has interviewed for her studies talk of how the adverts they’ve seen give them the idea that it’s impossible to lose, and it’s just a bit of fun. Try telling the older gambler who’s just lost his or her house that it’s “just a bit of fun”. At the end of the lecture, Professor Thomas showed us some pictures drawn by children, some as young as eight, of their sporting heroes. Each of them bore more than a passing resemblance to the original, but what was very thought-provoking was that all of them also included the sponsor’s logo on the shirt in the drawing, many of them for betting companies. Reading out the taglines from adverts for betting companies, but without saying who or what the advert was for, many of the children were able to instantly identify the particular betting company it had been designed for. In the last week, well over a third of a million of 11 to 16 year olds in the UK have gambled. Have a think about that for a moment, and ask yourself if that’s the sort of behaviour we want our kids to be engaging in.
The following day was the big event, the Excessive Gambling Wales 2018 Conference. The event was held at the Pier Head building in Cardiff, and was packed. The event was opened by Darren Millar, the Assembly Member for Clywd West and a strong supporter of The Living Room Cardiff. Darren spoke of the problems facing those of us who seek to try and help people with excessive gambling problems: -
“Excessive gambling is a public health enemy that rarely gets the attention and resources that it needs and deserves. It is a problem which ruins the lives of individuals and families across the country and all too often has devastating effects. It creates debt, harms mental health, destroys relationships, drives people to homelessness, and tragically, it can even lead to suicide. No matter where you are in Wales, gambling in one form or another is available twenty four hours a day, and all you need to access it is a computer, phone or a fixed odds betting terminal. Worryingly this ease of access has led to children being able to gamble within their own homes without their parent’s knowledge.”
Professor Samantha Thomas followed Darren Millar AM onto the stage, and to a much wider audience, once again presented the findings of her research into gambling amongst younger people. “It has become socially and culturally acceptable for individuals, their families, and their communities”, she said.
Presenting a very personal account of the harm gambling and gambling addiction can do was Sarah Grant. She recounted to us a very raw and moving account of her relationship with “Rita”. Rita, of course, is her addiction, and by personalising it with a name, Sarah has developed tools to help keep her in recovery. After nearly 15 minutes during which she opened up her heart and soul to us, Sarah very rightly received rapturous applause from all of us present for displaying the kind of fortitude in sharing her story that few of us can muster.
Following Sarah was Owen Baily, another gambling addict in recovery. Owen moved us right from the off with his admission that after a lapse he had contemplated suicide. In a world where sometimes it seems that the word is used lightly, everyone in the room knew he meant it from the bottom of his soul. Despite moving into new accommodation, his relationship with his girlfriend broke down and as well as gambling he took to drinking. But Owen didn’t just recount his story, he told us what lessons he had learned to lessen the chance of another relapse – always reach out for help, address our internal dialogues when they are negative, and iinvestigate and address the reasons behind our addictions to lessen the chance of a future relapse. Wise words indeed.
A hugely important event involving The Living Room recently has been the creation of a cross-party group in the Welsh Assembly to tackle the problem of excessive gambling in Wales, and a proposed gambling charter aimed at the gambling industry and government. This was detailed on a blog on this site last month. After a presentation from Living Room Cardiff Project Worker Nick Shepley to explain why the proposed charter is needed and what it demands, Mick Antoniw took to the stage to introduce us to the other members of the group of which he is the Chairperson: Dawn Bowden; Jayne Bryant; Dai Lloyd; Darren Millar; Jenny Rathbone; Simon Thomas; and John Griffiths. Each of the members of the cross-party group has signed up to our proposal for a Gambling Charter. With cross-party support we can really start to push the agenda at the Assembly, and even Professor Thomas says she can see Wales leading the way on this issue as we move forward.
Other speakers at the conference included Dr. Steve Sharman, who gave us a fantastic insight into “disordered gambling”, the type of excessive gambling that we often see in people at The Living Room. John McCracken from Gambleaware gave us appreciate the links between mental health illness and excessive gambling, and drew on his vast experience to highlight not just current issues, but those waiting to happen if we don’t take some sort of action at Governmental level now. Professor Robert Rogers spoke about the psychological reasons why some people are more prone to addiction than others, whilst Dr. Henrietta Bowden-Jones told us of her work with people suffering from anxiety, depression, and relationship difficulties – all well known to those of us in recovery from addiction.
Professor Rebecca Cassidy added her valuable knowledge to the plenary discussions and Q&A sessions given by the speakers, ably assisted by Matt Zarb-Cousin.
At The Living Room Cardiff we see first-hand the damage and chaos that excessive gambling brings to peoples’ lives, and to the lives of those around them. It is beyond comprehension that in the face of so much evidence from the speakers at the Excessive Gambling Wales Conference, that we continue to let the gambling industry run amok, as though with a scythe, through the fabric of our society. As Professor Thomas herself said at this year’s conference, “gambling is the only thing you can do where you can lose your house without actually leaving it.”