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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Fixed Odds Betting Terminals vs Internet Betting: Which is
politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Fixed Odds Betting Terminals vs Internet Betting: Which is worse?
Internet betting has often been under crossfire for causing problem gambling and addiction, but in recent years a new form of gambling has been gaining traction (and notoriety) in the UK.
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http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/suspected-aircraft-fragments-found-says-vietnam-ministry-website
reports coming in of discovery of 'tail fin'...
http://www.aircanada.com/en/travelinfo/APIS/apis.html
"Countries for which advance passenger information (API) is required
The following countries require API (Advance Passenger Information) from all airlines carrying passengers into their countries. Please note that this list is subject to change without notice:
* Antigua
* Australia
* Barbados
* Canada
* China
* Costa Rica
* Cuba
* Dominican Republic
* Grenada
* Jamaica
* Japan
* Mexico
* Republic of Korea
* Saint Lucia
* Spain
* United Kingdom
* United States"
One has to be pretty brainless in more than one department to get addicted to a machine. The very look of them turns me off. The only gambling I do is on politics or horses and those very infrequently.
The one thing I'm not aware of is the degree to which the shops themselves are dependent on the FOBTs. IF the FOBTs were unilaterally removed, how many shops would cease to be profitable ? The pre-existing "amusement arcades" (two in the High Street against twelve betting shops) still exist but their profitability must have been affected.
I've gambled in Vegas so a High Street FOBT has no appeal for me whatsoever. The other side of betting shop life is the plethora of virtual horse and dog racing which means that there is a constant supply of betting opportunities. Obviously, no sane gambler would get involved in the virtual action but the graphics are superb to watch.
The days when betting shops depended on horse and dog racing are long over - they are not unattractive places to enter and loiter though it seems some people spend all day in and around the shop (going outside to smoke) and the "regulars" in and around some shops are intimidating for the occasional visitor.
If I was a headmaster I'd be declaring a half holiday.
More depressing still was seeing the "pokies" in Australia. Soul destroying: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/11/pokies-and-the-australian-addiction-to-gambling
I do gamble on politics and football (I did well on Wigan in the FA cup.last year, perhaps should have had another punt) and occasionally on other things such as Eurovision. These are all punts where some knowledge may help, and the event is in the future, so there is a wait before re-staking.
Should FOBT be banned? I am in two minds.
On internet ads: they are monumentally irritating. They put me off rather than entice me to bet more.
.....
The White House has imposed visa restrictions on some Russian officials, and President Obama has issued an executive order enabling further sanctions. But Britain has already undermined any unified action by putting profit first.
It boils down to this: Britain is ready to betray the United States to protect the City of London’s hold on dirty Russian money. And forget about Ukraine."
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/08/opinion/londons-laundry-business.html?_r=2
They are currently leading 2 nil.
But now I am wondering if City are United in disguise.
Doh!
A man who lost £25,000 on high-stakes betting machines has called for them to be banned.
Martin Power, of Ramsgate, Kent, told BBC reporter Simon Jones the machines were as addictive as drugs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-26471783
If it did impact the sea, a question will be why the Emergency Transmitter Locator did not transmit. One of these is believed to be the source of the 787 fire at Heathrow, and at the time some people were calling for them to be removed as they were, so they claimed, essentially useless.
When they locate the wreck, it will be interesting to see if the Underwater Locator Beacons are chirping as expected.
I'm still surprised that they haven't located the crash fully, two days after the incident. Air India 182 was found within a few hours when it crashed in the North Atlantic; AF 447 within 18 hours in the South Atlantic.
The relatives must be going through hell. It's so ineffably sad.
https://www.caa.co.uk/docs/1672/srg_gad_Appendix 8b revised.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underwater_locator_beacon
Less than a week until the F1 season really kicks off. Most exciting pre-season since 2009, at least. Must admit I am hugely looking forward to it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183830/Gambling-The-46bn-cost-Britains-roulette-machine-addiction.html
It is clear the likes of Ladbrokes are not going to give up such a lucrative business without a fair amount of lobbying so those politicians with links to the gambling industry are leaving themselves vulnerable to claims of corruption, of living off immoral earnings.
It's bound to be his 'benefits' money going into the machine which means that the taxpayer has lost out by financing his enjoyment of watching the flashyshinylights.
England have picked Jade Dernbach
Where is Moeen Ali?
Arsenal used up all their luck against Sheffield United in 2003.
Each to their own I suppose.
Sort of following up my own post about tail fins (what an exciting life I lead), I half-remembered a story about a US fighter tail fin that crossed the Atlantic.
Well, here it is. The tail of an F14 that crashed off Florida was washed up in Ireland, three and a half years later.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1630213/posts
Dernbach marks run in front of press box and, with brilliant timing, a WI press officer tells us the windows are reinforced.
Arsenal path to silver cleared = tick
Dernbach playing 2020 = tick
Hoorar for the egg shaped ball game...
Anyway, 16/1 in a two horse race is phenomenal. Huzzah!
But then it was a winning bet for all the wrong reasons.
I think the key is that addicts get a huge adrenaline rush from winning, and FOBTs are so fast that they provide the rush more often. They aren't really playing in the unrealistic expectation of getting rich, but for the intermittent "hit" of glorious success. If there isn't much in their lives that gives that hit, the appeal must be stronger. Introducing more skill is just a tiresome distraction.
Maybe the answer is to make the permitted "house" margin tiny, so that if someone plays all day they're only losing as much as they'd lose with more sedate gambling at worse odds?
Losses, people lose more than they should/can afford, and stake even more to recover their losses.
Nick Leeson did a similar thing when he brought Barings Bank down.
This is why I think internet betting can be a whole other kettle of monkeys. Obviously, my main interest is F1. I'm not going to start betting much more, because there simply aren't more races (incidentally, my average bets per race have declined sharply since 2009. In one race then I offered 7 tips [in my defence that is still my most profitable race]).
It also helps to publicly tip and then explain yourself if you keep getting things wrong (which happened rather a lot last year...).
The point I was groping for, though, is that it misdiagnoses to feel baffled at the mindlessness. The POINT is that it's a mindless way of getting success hits (even if they then get more failures and an overall loss). If FOBTs were challenging and required deep thought, the current users wouldn't play them.
http://www.idfblog.com/2014/03/09/irans-weapons-shipment-safely-israels-hands/
40 missiles, 181 mortars, 400K bullets found on arms ship
People should grow a spine, a sense of responsibility and an understanding of consequences.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-26451421
They almost always "nearly win".
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNEKxdW_J5I
I know beating England is like winning the World Cup for Wales, but that doesn't count.
In a worrying development for the Better Together campaign, 21 per cent of those planning to vote Yes have received abuse or threats compared to just eight per cent of those planning to vote No.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/463823/SCOTLAND-AT-WAR-Death-threats-shame-both-camps-as-fight-for-votes-spirals-out-of-control
- The power of positivity is its most potent weapon. Alex Salmond paints a picture of a bright future http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/scotch-broth-becomes-more-savoury-as-yes-campaign-grows-9178966.html
Do you have one?
Ben Judah is very much British. A young man, educated at Oxford, in a hurry to move up the greasy pole faster than the Shard elevators. He spend a couple of years in the 'stans hunting the Yeti and finely honing his of social democracy and 'uman rights before prematurely predicting Putin's demise in his book "Fragile Empire: How Russia Fell In and Out of Love With Vladimir Putin".
Here he is again on the politico.com website continuing his crusade against Putin:
The Kremlin thinks it knows Europe’s dirty secret now. The Kremlin thinks it has the European establishment down to a tee. The grim men who run Putin’s Russia see them like latter-day Soviet politicians. Back in the 1980s, the USSR talked about international Marxism but no longer believed it. Brussels today, Russia believes, talks about human rights but no longer believes in it. Europe is really run by an elite with the morality of the hedge fund: Make money at all costs and move it offshore.
Full nonsense here: http://politi.co/MZ8LaF
Putin is a curious choice of target for an ambitious journalist looking forward to a long career. I wish the boy well.
Did you cut & paste, or did you write it out from scratch?
Legalising gambling is justifiable because it allows the state to control a dangerous activity that would otherwise take place in a wholly unregulated way (it could never be effectively stopped). The state should use that power to control here.
Even more painful for Edinburgh and Glasgow would be decisions made about Orkney and Shetland being made in Orkney and Shetland, including tje distribution of their oil revenues.
That's alcohol, celery and the Labour party doomed then.
Undoubtedly the strongest paragraph in your blog was the attack on his factual accuracy on the Shard. Still you have to accept the boy can turn a phrase and it is not just his mother who will be tipping him for further success.
Judah's weakness is not his research or writing: it is his total lack of irony and humour. He appeared on Sky News the other day to comment on the Ukraine and appeared like an Owen Jones with anger management issues.
There is not much Judah can do about this. Humour failure is a fatal flaw that only seems to fell the left.
I'm ambivalent over Scottish independence. I'd be sad to see the end of the UK; it's the country that I've lived in for my whole life, and that my father served in the RAF for a number of years (and his first posting, shortly after my birth, was at Leuchars), he served Queen and country - not countries. I was brought up thinking we were part of a pretty great partnership.
But I'd also be glad, as a Tory, to see the back of a considerable number of Scottish Labour MPs. I'm also happy for Scotland to have this opportunity to make a choice, and believe that Scotland would be able to make a successful go of it if that's the way the vote were to go.
Gun possession I differ from you: we can and have done excellent work in dealing with gun crime through criminalisation. But it requires focus by the police, which it has received.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/08/cpac-straw-poll-results-2014_n_4899465.html?&ncid=tweetlnkushpmg00000016
I hope she runs and wins in 2016.
It's a 100% success rate.