I agree with you Ippy.
However I am very gambling averse.
I am sure others will feel it interferes with their freedom to have a little flutter and that advertising of it is part of that.
Over and above that the actual adverts themselves are awful and feel that they have been dug up from the 80's.
There is one fox that definitely needs shooting.
My father joined the Police force immediately after the first world war in the days when bookmaking and being a bookers runner was all against the law.
So as I had it from the horses mouth this is how it went in those days, bookmakers made regular contributions to the Police Widows and Orphans fund and in return they the bookies were warned in advance of when the next lot of arrests would be taking place where they paid their fines then their businesses settled down for a while before the next round of interruptions started.
I can always hear my dad's voice in my ear from way back with an old saying that I think still stands I can still hear him saying, 'When you see bookmakers riding around on bikes with the backsides of their trousers hanging out that's when you start to take up betting', to me that was one of many little gems of advice my father gave me.
I particularly made a point of saying I'd like to see all advertising of any form of gambling banned, having said that I think there is little point trying to stop people gambling including trying to stop people having little flutters on whatever they like whenever they like but please don't advertise it anywhere.
The TV adverts portray the people doing gambling as mostly Jack the lad type people, very far from my experience of the rather shabby types I see entering and leaving these rather dower looking betting shops that put yet another scar on our many already challenged and run down shopping streets all over the country.
ippy.