I’ve been managing to find some time to watch some sport on TV lately and of course with certain TV channels they have TV commercials and certain TV commercials have left me with certain questions, here are some of them:
What’s the matter with some of today’s past and present members of the sporting world, what message are they sending out, do they know anything about addiction and how it works, do they know what they are promoting and encouraging, would they encourage or promote heroin or crack cocaine use? I don’t think so somehow, and do they even care?
I am of course talking about how they encourage and promote gambling; well actually they are not only promoting gambling they are in fact promoting gambling addiction. Advertising is a very lucrative business and where better to advertise than on TV (if you can afford to) where you can have an audience of billions, an audience which includes up and coming young sporting stars of the future who look up to our past and present sporting heroes.
Gambling addiction can be as devastating to millions of people, just as devastating as alcoholism or heroin addiction can be. Heroin dealers promote their product by offering free heroin to future addicts, gambling dealers do the same, they offer free bets to future punters.
Gambling can be seen as a quick and easy way to get big money, especially in our current financial climate, a way of getting out of debt but it’s really a way of getting into more debt. Gamblers chase their losses; they try to recuperate the money they have lost and they become stuck in a financial loop of frustration and despair as do their families and friends.
Are our sporting heroes and the advertising companies that they work for aware that gamblers have a very, very high suicide rate?
I feel that our sporting heroes should reverse their role and start to discourage gambling, they have immense influence and they are choosing to use it in a very negative and dangerous way. I wonder how much they are paid to encourage, influence and promote present and future misery.
