I wrote a piece about the Fixed Odds Betting Terminals uproar in the magazine this week, and it has prompted some angry responses by email and over social media. I’m told that I didn’t treat problem gambling with sufficient seriousness. I’m not sorry about that, I’m afraid: I think it’s silly to be too serious about the vices of others.
My point was that the political and the media classes are having something of a moral panic about FOBTs — and as always with moral panics, the political and media classes don’t really know what they are talking about. I doubt Ed Miliband or Tom Watson, who both seem dead against FOBTs, have ever spent more than 10 minutes in a bookie.
It is the righteous crusaders, not the exploitative vice industry, who often do the most harm. By clamping down on FOBTs, for instance, the government will probably not reduce reckless gambling.
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