Article (Madeleine Bunting): British families spend more money on gambling than on fruit and veg

On January 30 the government announces the decision on where it will plonk Britain's first super casino - the front-runners are the Millennium Dome and Blackpool. At the same time it will announce a further 17 licences for casinos - on top of Britain's existing 117 casinos.

Yet the case against the madness that is modern gambling keeps piling up the evidence of the disastrous impact on individuals and communities. Today, an analysis of British household expenditure reveals that the average British family spends more on gambling than on fresh fruit and vegetables in a week. As online gambling has boomed, the total annual spend is now put at £800 per person in the UK on average. So much for nanny state, and its perceived personification in Tessa Jowell - the former health minister who urged us to eat up our greens is the very politician who has presided over this phenomenon. [...]

The problem about gambling is that no one puts up a serious opposition to it anymore - the worthy but marginal Salvation Army and Methodists apart - because everyone is gambling. It's endemic in our culture - if you've got money, you gamble with shares and property, if you haven't, you gamble with lottery tickets, online and poker. And those who might have formed an opposition to the mass delusion and trickery which takes money from those who can often ill afford it - have been seduced by the lottery largesse which subsidises their theatre tickets, museums and art galleries. (Ed: and church restorations.) Read more