Having had gambling issues myself, many years ago, I now stick rigidly to your 3 points.
Not quite as simplistic as not having discipline though, gambling is a recognised addiction that usually requires help from others to combat.
The discipline part is first recognising you have a problem and admitting to yourself that you need help.
Like Twitter?
Donāt agree with banning the casinos. Itās about what then the government does to mitigate those who have a gambling problem. The worst thing they can do is to take a itās none of my business if you get addicted and your family suffers stance. A social tool that can be used to stop those with a problem
Nope. Iāve never had a gambling problem, because I have always had discipline and those basic rules were drilled into me from day one.
Fair enough.
Message to all drug addicts and alcoholics out there - Get some fucking discipline
Correct.
@cynicaloldgit - AKA Gripper Stebson
This has triggered my interest into my betting pattern.
I have occasionally posted a screenshot of my wins, but obviously not my losses.
Just checked my betting app history, I opened the account in May 2014 and Iām currently Ā£4179.92 down.
I assume this includes the Ā£470 I currently have in my betting pot.
So, down Ā£1.08 for every day Iāve had my betting account.
Thatās fairly affordable.
Out of curiosity, how do they deal with the match being cancelled?
I was going to say that banning is one thing promoting something is another.
We no longer allow (in UK) tobacco advertising and alcohol advertising is restricted. We still allow people to drink and smoke with restrictions to limit harm to others.
When I watch a match, there are full screen adverts to encourage gambling throughout the match. They annoy me, but they are clearly intended to encourage people to gamble.
There are also alcohol adverts, but these are at least restricted to the commercial breaks.
No idea - EDIT - Just seen the derby called off. The five fold will just become a 4 fold I suppose.
But they always say in the adverts āPlease gamble responsiblyā 
A cancelled match is nearly always treated as a non-runner, so you get your money back if itās a single bet, and any multiples (like @Dane ās) lose a leg. So, as he said, his 5-fold accumulator becomes a 4-fold.
Some bookmakers have strange rules about rescheduled matches, so itās always best to check the T&C first.
I never gamble, but isnāt it interesting how easily I get sucked into the mechanisms of it?
Not really. 
For the last 15 years I make 6 or 7 betting slips (ā¬3 each) before the weekends. Itās āpartā of my football weekend.
Over the years I have won more money than Iāve lost but itās not a lot (less than ā¬1500). I know it wonāt make me rich and Iām in control of it.
Club football at the weekend. Not in midweek. No international Football and I always stop when the football season ends during the summer.
Actually, this did remind me that I did do the pools for a couple of months when one of the lads in the office was a Littlewoods agent. I think I did it because he was after some extra income when he was getting married.
It was about 30p for a line of 8 from 10. On the one hand, it should have been down my street because I am a big football fan, but score draws are the absolute worst to pick and I soon lost interest. I think I did win a 6th dividend one week.
Now, thinking back, you did get the adverts for the pools in the paper, but the biggest advert was that they would feature the winners on the evening news, which in retrospect seems like an abuse of the national broadcaster. Of course, Saturday afternoon would also largely feature horseracing on BBC One, in which the betting odds were a major feature.
Gambling has always been around, but problem gambling seems to be growing. I definitely notice how intrusive the advertising is now, whereas in the past Ladbrookes and Littlewoods were there if you wanted them.
The odds being used in the broadcast of a horse race is a good way of explaining form and expectations. Not too different from how commentators would talk about the athletes when getting ready for a 100m event. You can argue the same for NFL or NBA coverage that focuses on the betting line. It immediately tells me, an even less than casual fan, the expectation for the game in a way I can make sense of. But look at the way this is advertised. It is disproportionately focused on complex bets that are a great story when they come off but that you are not supposed to win.
AKA āmugsā bets.ā
Anyone with two brain cells to rub together wouldnāt touch them.
I agree with you all that the advertising of gambling, especially in football, needs to be restricted. But that is not to say that gambling needs to be banned.
I donāt think anyone has actually argued for any such thing. It seems you are more or less in line with what most are saying but positioning yourself as the sole voice of reason.
I learnt from the best.
