Gambling, Crime and Greed – Looking beyond the Public Glare
Today the UK Gambling Commission released the names of 15 individuals who they have charged with offences relating to breaches of the Gambling Act 2005 due to bets they made on the date of the 2024 General Election.
The allegation being that these people placed bets based not on guesswork but on informed knowledge of precisely when the election was to be called.
In the face of it this is a case of #UKGC using their powers of prosecution to uphold the relevant part of the Gambling Act 2025 which creates a duty of:
“Preventing gambling from being a source of crime or disorder, being associated with crime or disorder or being used to support crime.”
EXCEPT…
While this case does involve a conjunction between gambling and crime it is so far removed from the real problem connection between the two as to be almost laughable.
The Gambling Commission have raised charges in these cases because:
- they identify the victims of these crimes as being gambling industry operators;
- they see the story behind this corrupt act as harming the reputation and integrity of gambling;
- it gives them an opportunity to be seen to be using their powers of prosecution around gambling and crime.
Let’s just be very clear here.
This is not a case of people committing crime to fund their addictive gambling.
Strictly speaking, it is not even a case of “gambling” at all.
The whole point of this action isn’t that someone had an “unfair” advantage when gambling, but that there was no actual gambling involved.
It was simple “insider trading” on a known outcome.
The only parties “gambling” were the licensed operators who decided to run a novelty market around an event which was wholly within the power of human beings to determine the “winning” outcome.
In theory, it should have been a “safe bet”.
A guaranteed source of “cheap” publicity once the date of the election was announced.
Well, didn’t that just work out peachy.
But, beyond the “bad” publicity, what was the criminal consequence?
15 people abused their position to win smallish sums of money.
The total “cost” to the operators was probably less than £10,000.
Criminal intent is of course criminal intent, and should be called out where it is identified. But the response by the Gambling Commission does seem disproportionate when set against the actual “criminal benefit” involved.
Most of these individuals have already suffered loss as a result of their foolish actions. Loss of job, loss of reputation, loss of position. All for what was at worst an insignificant “loss” to the industry which #YKGC sees itself as having a duty to protect.
Last week the same operators paid £250 to the chosen charities of 58 MPs who took part in their annual Grand National Charity bet – so a spend of £14,500 on another publicity stint pairing gambling with politics.
So, the money here is relatively insignificant.
Of more significance is that while the Gambling Commission are going full-on Judge Dredd “defenders of justice” on 15 cases of a very rare form of crime happening in gambling, they are studiously avoiding shedding any publicity on the thousands of “normal” cases each year involving millions of pounds where harmful gambling has led previously lawful individuals to turn to crime to fund their continued addiction.
In the past month news headlines have included:
NatWest bank manager stole £344,000 from cashpoint machines
Sheffield care worker stole £27,000 from vulnerable service users
Youth Rugby Coach stole £15,000
Fake “Kidnap victim” defrauded Partner out of £69,000
Holmfirth man stole £60,000 from his mum
These are all cases of once honest folk becoming corrupted by Gambling Addiction.
The point here being that while once every five years a handful of ‘privileged’ people might try to abuse the gambling industry’s own marketing mistakes the bigger issue has to be the fact that each and every day of each and every year dozens of people will be committing acts of dishonesty to fund their addictive need to keep gambling at any cost. A need which has only been allowed to grow to such a chaotic state because those with the ability to prevent it, detect it, and intervene to stop it – the UKGC, Gambling Operators, and Banks – are NOT doing enough in this regards.
Addiction makes people do harmful things. If left untreated and unstopped it WILL lead to ever escalating acts of dishonesty, and eventually, crime.
GLEN‘s sympathies are with the 5 listed above, and also with their victims.
It does not lie with the 15 political grifters currently being prosecuted for acts which they perceived as being “free money”.
There is a massive difference between greed and addiction… despite what the Crown Prosecution Service and many judges might say.
We call upon the Gambling Commission, and indeed any academic or financial institutions reading this, to commit to undertaking a full exploration and quantification of the REAL incidence and cost of crimes which our regulated gambling sector plays a major part in fostering through ignorance, indifference, and even deliberate cover up.
Let’s all work together to bring the real truth of Gambling and Crime out of the shadows and into the public spotlight.
Prevent Addiction to Prevent Crime.
BBC Article on UKGC raising criminal charges over General Election “betting” –> https://lnkd.in/ePPBu6Gz