Journalist Wanted - Gambling Commission Complaint

leebtyler

michael1983l wrote: »

Hello,

I will make this very brief as I do not want to go into too much detail in the public domain. I hope to gain the support of a journalist willing to publish my story on a national level if possible.

Basically I have had an aillness over the last 9 months that has just been diagnosed bipolar disorder. To cut a long story short this has been part of the reason of which fuelled an extreme gambling binge. Now my story isn't about getting my money back but about getting a system in place that protects people like me from completly destroying their lives.

I have been in correspondance with 2 well known high street bookmakers and they both claim that my level of gambling was normal and are not willing to pursue a complaint.

Ok let me highlight 2 days worth of card transactions at each bookmaker

Bookmaker 1

19 May £200
19 May £200
19 May £300
19 May £100
19 May £200
19 May £200
19 May £250
20 May £300
20 May £300

Bookmaker 2

18 May £150
18 May £200
18 May £250
19 May £200
19 May £200
19 May £200
19 May £200
19 May £300

Some of these transactions were made within minutes of each other but between the first and the last transaction in each day was no more than a few hours.

The operators have a Social Responsibility within their license set out by the gambling commission to stop this from happening, however the gambling commissions regulations are toothless as they fail to identify what an acceptable level of gambling is before somebody stops and asks you what you are doing. One operators response was that his staff are not trained to identify these problems... !!!!!!.

The card transactions were the tip of the iceberg but I would guess that between the two stores I have clocked up £30k of debt within 9 months due to this addiction in line with my illness making it worse.

What I need is some national coverage to highlight how people with addiction are being failed by the operators and the regulators and the fact of what obscene amounts the operators deem to be normal levels of gambling.

Please please someone out there who can help get in contact, I have kept all correspondance and bank statements to support my claims.

PLEASE PLEASE HELP ME TO CHANGE THIS SO THAT OTHERS DO NOT GET THE CHANCE TO DESTROY THEIR FAMILIES LIFE LIKE I HAVE.

thought i'd wade in here, having worked for both William hill and another high street bookmaker.

your spending habits are actually within reasonable boundaries, i would regularly see a lot more than your kind of transactions from the same people all the time, even more so in the online sections, we were very much under the policy that its their money, even if we wrote to you and explained your spending you wouldnt stop, and you know damn well you wouldnt have even if they had.

illness or not, you cannot lay blame for your problems on someone else, no policy or system in the world can protect an addict from themselves, its not possible.

Bookmakers are there to make money on the weak and needy, no-one disputes this fact, your a gambler, they let you gamble, its not our place to tell you how to spend your money, you earn it, its yours.

i doubt anyone would really write an article because its all been done before, you are number "x" in a long line of addicts who got burned, afaik they were investigated some time ago when someone killed themselves over their gambling losses, and found not at fault as the paper produced by the gambling commission said pretty much what ive just said, there is no system in existence to protect both the gambler and the company.

when_will_it_end

michael1983l wrote: »

£200 transactions within minutes of each other to fund a machine that has a maximum £500 payout in any one win. Patterns of spending most of the day in the shop until debit cards start getting declined and the next card is whipped out to play with.


What in your opinion MAY start to be a cause for concern then? I asked the same question to the bookmakers, this was their repsonse

Hmmm, basically that means the shop doesn't have to do anything and can never have liability held against them in regards to Section 2 of the regs as it is all about the shop operators own opinion.

Kinda wrong don't you think? Especially as the bookmaker business is heavily bonus weighted in salaries. Kind of contradictoary to leave it down to the shop operator who relies on irrational spending to increase his own salary.

Vested interests do you not agree?

so not true,

leebtyler

when_will_it_end wrote: »

so not true,

absolutely not true i can agree, my salary was just that, i had no bonus structure.

not sure where the OP gets this stuff from.

Ronaldo_Mconaldo

Threads like this make me feel so much better about myself. What a sorry society we have become where we are able to invent all manner of illness to use as an excuse for our pathetic behaviour. Original poster, since you are so easily conned out of your money i'll play the game, i'm a journalist. Just send me £50 and i'll write your story, the world needs to know all about you, i'll get your money back and everything will be right with the world. Now give us your bank details.

Apples2

To be fair, this OP epitomises the blame culture.

He has a fairly long posting history of blaming the entire World and simply will not accept ANY of his actions are his own fault.

This is just another 14 pages of finger pointing