The new generation taking a gamble in life

12:53pm Thursday 20th March 2008

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"I LOST £50 at the casino last night," my friend told me sadly.

"You lost £50? Have you phoned them up? Someone may have handed it in. Can you remember where you last had it?" What a careless boy.

"No, I gambled fifty pounds, lost it, won it and now I've lost it again. I don't think phoning them would help."

I've begun to notice a new trend in entertainment patterns amongst my friends - while, on the whole, the girls tend to stay put in the pub, frittering money away on liquid, many of the boys seem to have branched out into the bizarre realm of frittering away money on thin air.

Gambling used to be firmly in the domain of Jack off Coronation Street and other kindly old men in stained Mackintoshs.

But now it seems there's no need to ally yourself with the pension drawers, or even with the flash cats, in the casino anymore.

I read the other day that there were 3.5 million online gamblers in Britain, all playing poker and bingo with virtual strangers for money that, for all its Monopoly fake-cash appearance, will actually feel pretty real when five days later there's a chunk missing from your bank account.

In fact, the same fifty pound misplacing boy was sat in front of the computer screen last week during the Cheltenham Cup - far from watching the race itself, he was gripped by the changing odds leading up to it to see the best time to back the (eventually, losing) horse. Sounds rather pathetic doesn't it?

But I don't think it's moral condemnation that keeps me from embracing the gambling culture - in fact, in a way, I think it's nice that people can spend money and not necessarily expect a return on it. Sort of like giving to charity.

But isn't there something a bit sad about TV adverts encouraging people to disappear from the living room to play bingo by themselves on the internet, regardless of whether or not they officially have a problem'.

Of course, gambling becomes more objectionable when these problems' occur and people's losses creep above the socially acceptable chunk of their salary.

Just last week I heard of a court case in which a man was trying to sue the bookmakers William Hill for allowing him to gamble in excess of £2 million, even after he'd requested that they stop him.

Hang on, you're over 18, aren't you? And, officially, sound of mind? And, it seems, rather loaded, at least before the gambling. Come on, do you need to humiliate yourself further by trying to blame other people for your own downfall?

Needless to say, the case ended as a fitting conclusion to his losing streak.