Although gambling is entertaining and could potentially be profitable, it can occasionally drag you to the dark side, known as addiction.
This happened to David Bradford, who is now a former gambler. He decided to help those in need, who are going through the same thing by establishing a safer online gambling group with his son, Adam Bradford.
A Shoulder To Lean On:
There are multiple reasons why they have built something like this. One of many is to give their full support to those who are struggling under the NHS framework.
The second is to raise awareness and accentuate how important it is to prevent any potential problems ahead of time.
The last, and definitely not least, is to cooperate with both the government and operators to enhance and put in order a gambling policy to protect fragile players.
Further Plans:
Adam and David are not stopping here. In the near future, they are planning on having meetings with an industry self-exclusion scheme, as well as Sky Bet with hopes of creating some form of a customer-led union between operators, the ones who have a plethora of experience and are policy makers.
Furthermore, they want to make sure that operators truly give their maximum effort to commit to a Safer Online Gambling Charter. Through consumer testing and probes, they will be able to determine how much they are willing to invest in their customers.
Mistakes That Must Be Corrected:
Just recently, these two have uncovered mistakes that were made in the gambling industry’s GAMSTOP self-exclusion scheme, which isn’t permissible considering the fact that it is supposed to help troubled gamblers.
Ever since they discovered it, the UKGC (United Kingdom gambling Commission) has given their promise to fix whatever needs to be fixed.
Speaking of addiction and how it could potentially destroy anyone’s life if not under control, David talked about his past and how this vice affected his life:
“Online gambling became a devastating addiction for me. An addict will not know they have the problem until it’s too late. Psychologically it takes you over. I was like a hamster in the hamster wheel. This work is going to become the rest of my life and I am proud to be able to turn a corner by providing a solution which will improve the lives of thousands of addicts across the country. Free bets and glamorous adverts kept me betting until there was nowhere else to go but to steal money to keep the whole facade alive. It was a desperate and unforgivable situation, I just wish help was around at the time.”
Today, in the UK there are a lot of people (approximately more than 430,000) who are addicted to gambling. According to some reports from the UKGC around two million individuals could potentially develop the same addiction in the future.
Source: “Former Gambling Addict Launches Safer Online Gambling Group” https://europeangaming.eu/portal/press-releases/2019/01/22/36861/former-gambling-addict-launches-safer-online-gambling-group/. European Gaming. January 23, 2019.
Comment: What an incredible pair! I am truly amazed by their selflessness and kindness!
