'Sport is being used as a money making cash cow, with a high cost to our vulnerable young people' - Your Letters and a trip to the zoo 80 years ago in our Pictures from the Past series
MPs urged to look at the real harm of gambling and putting up with anti-social behaviour - today's letters - plus we take a trip from Bridgnorth to Dudley Zoo in 1945.
MPs miss point over gambling
I noted an article with the headline ‘MP in call to increase online gambling tax’.
The article says Julia Buckley, MP for Shrewsbury, has co-signed a letter to Rachel Reeves urging her to introduce significant reforms to online gambling in the upcoming autumn Budget. She is among 101 MPs calling for a targeted levy on harmful online gambling products with revenue ringfenced to fund the removal of the two-child benefit cap.
It is my opinion the MPs are missing the point. Surely the key point is that sport is being exploited by gambling companies for profit. It estimated that over 85,000 children in the UK are currently addicted to gambling.
Young people are encouraged to play sport at school, in their local community club, and then watch their favourite club on the big screen or by attending live games. One game of televised football between Manchester City and Wolves had more than 5,000 visible gambling advertisements.
Last week, the Gambling Commission's annual survey estimated up to 1.4 million adults in the UK, external have a gambling problem.
Surely rather than government lobbying Rachel Reeves to raise taxes from this exploitation of sport, MPs should be trying to protect our young viewing communities from such saturation of sports events by reducing or banning this kind of advertising that our young people are being exposed to when they watch sport, often in their own homes.
