Gambling in an industry that feasts on the poor and vulnerable - Bangladesh

I rarely empathize with a destroyer not to mention an aggressive one equipped with a hammer yet the recent rampage from Eric Baptista in Liverpool filled me with pity. He had a gambling problem and had pleaded to be restricted by each of his local bookies who refused to stop serving him. He is such a wonderful customer that constantly loses £400 on the fixed odd machine in minutes.

Baptista made a drastic move in May to put these gambling shops out of business if they wouldnít stop serving him. He just lost another £100 when his brain tripped at the William Hill on Aigburth Road. He purchased two tins of black paint from his neighbor and started spreading it over everything visible to him. He went further to other branches and caused a damage of over £36,000 in a period of three weeks by shattering down TV screens, betting terminals and gambling machines.

He pleaded to be guilty of causing criminal damage last month and was suspended for 12 months and ordered to carry out 150 hours of community work without pay. The crown court in Liverpool was informed of his shouts during one of his violence that it was a protest, he was sorry but there was no protection for customers.

This must have been an unpleasant experience for the staff he threatened but they were supposed to have stopped serving him. He claimed that he wouldnít pour a pint for those who had drunk too much when he was a barman. Then why was he still permitted to feed the machines when the bookie already knew he was an addict?

Gambling company 888 punished record £7.8m for failing susceptible customers. He was allowed because the gambling industry naturally feasts on the needy and those with survival issues. Last week, one of the biggest online gambling firms in Britain, 888 was penalized £7.8m after granting permission to 7,000 people who have decided to withdraw from its sport/casino/poker platform access to their account and proceed with gambling. A guardian investigation also discovered last week that gambling companies were harvesting data through third-party firms making people with who have quit gambling and low income the target of bookmarkers and online casinos.

Data harvesting do not pose many threats to most addicts apart from the fact that they could not purchase a pint of milk without walking past a betting or a pawn shop. It is really discouraging to see our great community no longer able to maintain just an M&S but infected with pawn shops, bookies and stores where washing machines are sold for as much as £5.50 a week (which is double the high-street price towards the end of the usual 156-week payment plan). Just as it is obvious to predict that an environment is improving when the blinds and the bi-fold doors of the plantation emerge. You also know itís going the other way when more than one bookie, a BrightHouse or Cash Generator hits a street. Gambling looked very interesting at a younger age mostly because I was not permitted (Christian parents). It even felt illegal after school in Morecambe to play the 2p cascade machine at Johnnyís Fun Factory. I later started to see gambling differently in 2005. I was the youngest on the G2, the Guardian daily feature magazine. I was responsible for implementing some ideas from the features editor for the redesigned pages when the paper was downsizing to Berliner format. One has the title ìAre you happyî and was considered as an ordinary section where we ask people out there that question.

Uncovered: How gambling firm targets the needy and ex-gamblers.

It later became evident that it was hard for people to confess to a nosy parker having a notebook that they skipped town, high on their satisfying lives. After lots of mind-destroying hours, I could with all assurance report that at the very least, I was not happy.

I looked through the Exmouth Market when it was almost becoming the food haven of London that it is today and spotted a bookmaker, squeezed between a jewelry store and an artisanal bakery. It was this very day that I found out that you should visit a bookie whenever you need a sad, genuine quote. A man came out and leaned against the window, lit a fag and confessed that he was definitely not happy. He was barely speaking with his wife and had conception issues for many years. He had recently squandered the money meant for his private IVF, once again.

Research has shown that individuals living in an environment with a greater number of bookie are bound to have a gambling problem. Gambling problem cost the UK £1.2bn every year. The metropolitan police stated that since 2010, there has been a 68% rise in severe crimes linked to betting shops in London. But councils are powerless in refusing the applications of new betting shops where there are clusters already and the government is still deciding if it should constrain the fixed-odds betting terminals that are already up to 34,000 which triggered Baptistaís hammering spree. It will be difficult to see what will awaken the authorities if a gambling addict with a hammer doesnít.