Editorial

Tuesday, 10 March 2009 22:37

Gambling as a worldwide activity has been around in one form or another for about as long as there have been human beings. However, while the more sophisticated kind of gambling, where money or objects of value are wagered on the outcome of a certain event or the settlement of an argument can be traced back thousands of years through many civilisations, the version of gambling as we know it today is much younger.

In Britain and Europe, long before the Americas were discovered, gambling has flourished as a pastime of both the rich and aristocratic, as well as the poor and impoverished. The legal controls that have been put into place in an attempt to restrict and control gambling are even more recent. Gambling in Victorian Britain in particular had become so restricted as to force it almost completely underground.

Whilst the world wide depression of the 1920s and 30s saw organised crime explode in the United States along with the creation of Las Vegas as its legalised gambling capital of the time, gambling actually remained an illegal activity in Britain until 1961. That didn’t mean however that it wasn’t a flourishing underground activity where literally millions of pounds changed hands annually. After the Second World War, while gambling at race courses was considered legal, there was no way for  them to control off course betting which was one of the major forms of illegal gambling at the time. The British Government were aware of the potential revenue it could generate from the taxation of gambling, so in 1961 they drafted the Betting and Gaming act.

The Act was a serious attempt to control and legalise gambling by allowing private companies to set up and run betting establishments off course where people could go to place bets on horse and dog racing. It also allowed for the creation of legal casinos. Unfortunately, all that the Act accomplished doing was to allow previously illegal betting establishments that were hitherto the subject of numerous police raids due to their spin off criminal activities, to suddenly become legal businesses.

The legislation had been rushed through parliament with great haste and as a consequence the wording contained in the Act was not as clear and watertight as it ought to have been. This caused a lot of problems as the newly legalised industry literally exploded in its popularity. It meant that new gambling businesses were opening at an alarming rate. At its peak, around one hundred new operations were opening every week of which most were run by members of the criminal fraternity who had been highly active in the industry during its pre-legalisation days. To compound the problems with legalised gambling in Britain, many businesses were also operated by members of American organised crime factions who had travelled across the Atlantic hoping to cash in on the newly created market in which they had a lot of expertise.

It was like another gold rush, except the prize this time around was a slice of a very lucrative gambling market. Within five years following the creation of the Act, a thousand new casinos had been opened up and down the country. To put this into perspective, there are currently only one hundred and forty legal casinos active in Britain today. With such a rapid expanse of this industry, it soon became apparent that the authorities could not cope with controlling it.

The problem was finally officially recognised by Roy Jenkins, the Home Secretary in 1970, who proposed to rectify the situation. Many prominent American gambling figures, who were well known mob members in their home country, were deported. British gangland figures, including the notorious Kray brothers were rounded up and made an example of. A new bill to supersede the 1961 Act was drafted and became known as the restrictive and stringent Gaming Act. This Act closed most of the loopholes that existed in the earlier 1961 Betting and Gaming Act and tightened up the rules considerably.

With the creation of the new Gaming Act, gambling businesses including betting shops, casinos, card rooms and bingo parlours were now required to obtain a licence to enable them to operate legally. Licenses could be immediately revoked for any business not complying with the law and the whole industry was to be overseen by the newly formed and Home Office monitored Gaming Board.

The new Act had a powerful effect on the gambling industry and such was its impact that the number of licensed casinos was dramatically cut to around one hundred and twenty within a year.

To this day, gambling restrictions remain tight in Britain, although profits and the taxable revenue they create is huge. London is home to the majority of licensed casinos which attract wealthy clients from around the world. A series of new proposed legislations are currently being debated which may open up the way for more Vegas style casinos to be opened in other parts of the country. Online gambling is also on the increase with some licenses having been granted for operators to run online casinos from within Britain’s borders, further expanding upon an already enormous cash generating business.