[Football] Paul Merson: Football and Gambling. BBC 1

[Justice]

I was in a casino one evening a young lad starting playing roulette probably with around a £2k bank roll impressively in just over an hour or so he had won almost £40k he carried on and like always on roulette you start losing after a winning streak he was now down to £30k still an excellent result, 99% of us would of ran out the place never to return on £40k not this fella lost the lot and to be fair to the casino staff they stopped him withdrawing more money and took him away to calm down.

I came to the conclusion that evening that money has no value to a gambling addict they don’t see it as £40k and what they could spend it on it’s all about chasing the high of winning.

 

[herecomesaregular]

Paul Merson was lucky to have a loving forgiving family and friends behind him to help him through it. I recently found out a friend i had from my school days also recently took his own life. Despite earning over 500k a year from ForEx and share trading he blew the lot constantly I remember once playing a game of snooker with him - we were both average players and having played usually for the table hire, suddenly one day he wanted to play a frame for a grand and i was like WTF. he said if i lost i could pay him installments and when i refused that was the last time i saw him.

i bumped into his mother in town recently and she said he lost about 5 million over 20 years but spent most of his time living rough before he took his own life as he had drained every ounce of goodwill and "one last chance mum" from her. Imagine how desperate the mother must have got to throw her son on the street, hoping to teach him a lesson but ultimately taking his own life.

What a shocking story and one that really saddens. What a situation for his family to have to now live out their days with.

I gamble (small time, relatively) and would like the opportunity to continue but the companies are vile sharks and the reduction in regulation is appalling. Betting should not be advertised in sport at all nor around game time and only after a watershed time. It's obviously targeted at the young aswell.

I watched the programme last night and Merson seemed very, very fragile and showed no confidence that he could keep away from gambling. Very brave of him to do the programme and I do hope that he can stay well. A few things shocked me the most: when conducting the experiment with the blue/red machine that while playing he was barely listening to the academics talking to him just obsessed with the game (with no monetary gain for him) and then when he bet on a low probability of winning and did win he was ecstatic and "I tricked the machine haha", I mean wtf it's a machine mate. Also that when he won he just carried on playing until he lost it all again. The obvious thing with gambling is to stop and walk away with winnings not think "I'm on a roll". And the other thing that was truly shocking was the betting company emailing the deceased to say "you haven't deposited enough this week/month to earn your rewards".

I know Tony is a messiah to us but I still have some discomfort knowing the stadium and squad is built somewhat on unethical gains and money from poor sods like the chap highlighted above. At least it remains a community club (in some ways) though.

 

[herecomesaregular]

I was in a casino one evening a young lad starting playing roulette probably with around a £2k bank roll impressively in just over an hour or so he had won almost £40k he carried on and like always on roulette you start losing after a winning streak he was now down to £30k still an excellent result, 99% of us would of ran out the place never to return on £40k not this fella lost the lot and to be fair to the casino staff they stopped him withdrawing more money and took him away to calm down.

I came to the conclusion that evening that money has no value to a gambling addict they don’t see it as £40k and what they could spend it on it’s all about chasing the high of winning.

One has to agree with this, the numbers seem to become irrelevant (and sadly just go up and up).

 

[Swansman]

What a shocking story and one that really saddens. What a situation for his family to have to now live out their days with.

I gamble (small time, relatively) and would like the opportunity to continue but the companies are vile sharks and the reduction in regulation is appalling. Betting should not be advertised in sport at all nor around game time and only after a watershed time. It's obviously targeted at the young aswell.

I watched the programme last night and Merson seemed very, very fragile and showed no confidence that he could keep away from gambling. Very brave of him to do the programme and I do hope that he can stay well. A few things shocked me the most: when conducting the experiment with the blue/red machine that while playing he was barely listening to the academics talking to him just obsessed with the game (with no monetary gain for him) and then when he bet on a low probability of winning and did win he was ecstatic and "I tricked the machine haha", I mean wtf it's a machine mate. Also that when he won he just carried on playing until he lost it all again. The obvious thing with gambling is to stop and walk away with winnings not think "I'm on a roll". And the other thing that was truly shocking was the betting company emailing the deceased to say "you haven't deposited enough this week/month to earn your rewards".

I know Tony is a messiah to us but I still have some discomfort knowing the stadium and squad is built somewhat on unethical gains and money from poor sods like the chap highlighted above. At least it remains a community club (in some ways) though.

I like some of the things they've done over here to regulate it.

To be able to act on the Swedish market, betting companies need a license. In order to get that license they need to provide people with a very easy way of banning themselves from betting. With just two or three clicks, I can ban myself from betting on any licensed site for a full year. They are also required to send you warnings if you bet too much and you are able to easily decrease (but not as easily increase) how much you can bet for each month etc. I think particularly the ability to ban yourself from virtually every betting site has helped a lot of people.

Betting companies are also not allowed to offer most types of bonuses / free bets etc.

Casinos are obviously a different, harder to solve question but we dont have many here.

 

[Justice]

What a shocking story and one that really saddens. What a situation for his family to have to now live out their days with.

I gamble (small time, relatively) and would like the opportunity to continue but the companies are vile sharks and the reduction in regulation is appalling. Betting should not be advertised in sport at all nor around game time and only after a watershed time. It's obviously targeted at the young aswell.

I watched the programme last night and Merson seemed very, very fragile and showed no confidence that he could keep away from gambling. Very brave of him to do the programme and I do hope that he can stay well. A few things shocked me the most: when conducting the experiment with the blue/red machine that while playing he was barely listening to the academics talking to him just obsessed with the game (with no monetary gain for him) and then when he bet on a low probability of winning and did win he was ecstatic and "I tricked the machine haha", I mean wtf it's a machine mate. Also that when he won he just carried on playing until he lost it all again. The obvious thing with gambling is to stop and walk away with winnings not think "I'm on a roll". And the other thing that was truly shocking was the betting company emailing the deceased to say "you haven't deposited enough this week/month to earn your rewards".

I know Tony is a messiah to us but I still have some discomfort knowing the stadium and squad is built somewhat on unethical gains and money from poor sods like the chap highlighted above. At least it remains a community club (in some ways) though.

I would remove this last paragraph as it’s simply not true.

 

[herecomesaregular]

I would remove this last paragraph as it’s simply not true.

Hmm not a grain of truth? He made plenty of money through developing online gambling sites before moving onto the StarLizard thing betting against the traditional bookies?