An all-consuming but pointless addiction

Is promoting gambling on TV worse than promoting smoking?

I like to have a flutter from time to time. Indeed, my wife would say I'm an inveterate gambler. But hard as I try, I doubt I'll ever match Gordon Taylor. Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, is described by Dominic Lawson in The Sunday Times as Britain's "most highly paid trade unionist". He needs to be. According to The Sun, he managed to stake "£4m on more than 2,000 bets in just 30 months".

Taylor is now being pursued for gambling debts by one of the firms he used, which is presumably why his private vice found its way into the columns of a tabloid. He certainly had good reason to try and keep it quiet, says Lawson. Ten years ago, after one of his members was reported to have lost £400,000 through gambling, he warned: "People talk about drugs and alcohol in football. But there are no random tests for betting, which can easily spiral out of control." A few years later he was even more forthright.

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