Sitting beside the hospital bed of his disabled daughter, Hussain Vorajee was gambling.
It was 2012, and she was spending the first year of her fragile life undergoing numerous operations at Bristol Children’s Hospital.
Hussain had spent the past 10 years of his placing bets. Before the next 10 were up, he would lose more than £1m.
That he had made it from his home in Gloucester to Bristol was an accomplishment. On numerous occasions, he had gambled away the money he needed for the trip.
Gambling was the first thing he did in the morning. He gambled at work, at red traffic lights and, on one occasion, while attending a gamblers anonymous meeting.
“My mind was gone,” Hussain, now 49, says.
“It was very severe. I didn’t know where to turn. I tried to end my life.”
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Hussain hasn’t gambled in six years – no thanks to the industry, he says, which has surrounded him with temptation.
There are 24 betting shops in Gloucester, billboards marketing the upcoming races at nearby Cheltenham Festival and a barrage of adverts at each Manchester United match the football superfan attends.
Some 62% of people say gambling advertising is “everywhere” and 31% recall seeing their first gambling advert before the age of 17, according to a study of 3,000 people by charity GambleAware published on Wednesday.
Hussain feels the same: “I still struggle because every corner I turn, I feel that I’m very close to my next bet,” he says.
“Even all those years of not gambling, the addiction is there. It will always be there.”
While the prevalence of gambling addicts like Hussain is disputed, a Gambling Commission survey of 10,000 adults in 2023 found 2.5% were “problem gamblers”, defined as gambling that compromises, disrupts or damages family, personal or recreational pursuits.
The government must crack down on advertising, Hussain says, to prevent more young people from joining their ranks.
Disputed data on advertising and addiction
Up-to-date figures on the industry’s advertising budget are not publicly available, but spending was estimated to be at £1.5bn in 2017 when analysed by research firm Regulus Partners.
Last August, Premier League fans were subjected to nearly 30,000 gambling messages via TV, radio and social media on the opening weekend of the season, according to research by the University of Bristol.
Adverts were viewed 24 million times on social media over the same period.
This type of marketing helped the industry earn £15.1bn in the year to March 2023, almost double its takings in 2009 (£8.3bn).
But in 2020, the House of Lords Committee on the Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry reported that, while there was a correlation between gambling advertising and problem gambling, there was no evidence of a causal link.
The Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), the industry standards body, says the industry “must comply with strict guidelines and safer gambling messaging” and has voluntarily introduced a ban on ads broadcast within five minutes of pre-watershed sporting events.
“Each month around 22.5 million people in Britain enjoy a bet, on the lottery, in bookmakers, casinos, bingo halls and online, and the overwhelming majority do so safely and responsibly,” a spokesman says.
Nonetheless, in 2018, the thinktank Respublica estimated that almost a quarter of online gambling profits were derived from problem gamblers, with a further third coming from those who are at risk.
In 2022 the top 10% of gamblers were responsible for 79% of gambling industry revenue, the National Centre for Social Research found, while emphasising that “far from all of those… would be expected to experience harm”.
Broken families
For Hussain, it boils down to this: “You’ve got gambling company owners who are living in palaces and you’ve got thousands and thousands of people who are suffering, homeless, families being destroyed, marriages being broken.”
His own addiction cost him two marriages and his relationship with his eldest son, he says, not to mention hundreds of thousands of pounds he earned working in property and the mobile phone industry.
“I was a successful businessman. I had a lot of properties,” he says.
“I was one of the best mobile phone sales people in the country. Mobile phones were booming at that time, between 1999 and 2013.”
In 2001, the year he married his first wife, gambling machines were rolled out in British bookies, offering largely unregulated games based purely on chance rather than real-world events.
Within a year Hussain had spent £200,000 in one Ladbrokes shop.
“Those machines absolutely destroyed me,” he says. “The crack cocaine of gambling.”
In the coming years, his property and cars would be repossessed. He lost his job and entered bankruptcy.
“I used to ring my ex-wife crying every day saying: ‘I can’t stop, I can’t stop’.”
Online gambling then put a casino in his pocket. He recalls one evening when he deposited £10,000 into a betting account while his wife was cooking poppadoms.
By the time dinner was ready, he had lost it all.
“Gambling takes you away from your mind. You don’t want anything in front of you. You don’t want relationships. You don’t want your children,” Hussain says.
“All you think about is where the next bet is coming from.”
Preventing harm to families was central to the Italian government’s justification for banning almost all gambling adverts in 2019.
Gambling companies in Italy cannot sponsor sports, advertise during sport broadcasts, use social media influencers and targeted ads, or market via posters, TV, radio and online.
All these practices are permitted in the UK.
Ipsos analysis of regulations in seven countries found Britain had fewer restrictions than Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands.
In Spain and the Netherlands, marketing can only take place via certain online advertisements, according to the research firm. In Belgium, only sponsoring sports is permitted.
British law requires marketing to be carried out in a “socially responsible manner”, including a ban on ads strongly appealing to young people, targeting problem gamblers, linking gambling to sexual success, or suggesting it can solve financial or personal problems.
In February, bookmaker Stake gave up its licence amid a Gambling Commission investigation into a video on X featuring a porn star that displayed its logo.
“Advertising must comply with strict guidelines and safer gambling messaging, which promotes safer gambling tools and signposts help to those concerned about their betting, is regularly and prominently displayed,” a BGC spokesman says.
“International experience shows us that countries with advertising bans and draconian restrictions have a much larger gambling black market.”
He says members of the BGC commit 20% of TV, radio and digital advertising to promoting safer gambling.
But for Hussain, it’s not enough.
“We need massive, massive changes,” he says, adding the government should step in.
“Otherwise, I think over the next year, two years, three years, I think we’re going to see more suicides, more suffering, and all this campaigning going on is not going to help.”
A YouGov survey for GambleAware in 2023 found 44% of those struggling with problem gambling were at a high risk of suicidal ideation.
However, it should be noted that the chief executive of the Gambling Commission, Andrew Rhodes, said the same year there were “no robust figures on the prevalence of severe harms in Great Britain such as gambling-related suicide”.
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said: “We recognise the impact harmful gambling can have on individuals and their families and we are absolutely committed to strengthening protections for those at risk.
“The industry has a clear task to further raise standards to ensure that gambling advertising does not exacerbate harm, and this work will be monitored closely.
“The government has already announced plans to bring in a statutory levy on gambling profits to generate £100 million for the research, prevention and treatment of gambling-related harms.”
This will replace voluntary contributions made by operators to the tune of roughly £42m on average over the past four years.
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email [email protected] in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
