Problem gambling has been identified quite rightly by government as a serious issue. The industry contributes voluntarily about £5m a year to help cure problem gamblers of their addiction and to fund research into better practices that can assist with remedies.

Surprisingly the level of problem gambling in the UK is about a third of that in the US. I say surprisingly because practically all forms of gambling in the UK were legitimised in 1961 which is not the case in the US. Internet gambling is still banned and all forms of gambling are still banned in some states. Very often to gamble legitimately in the US you have to travel many miles to find a betting shop or casino.

In the UK that is not the case. Betting shops can be found on the High Street and Casinos are available in most large towns. The prevalence of addiction in the UK is less than one percent of all gamblers ninety nine percent of gamblers participate without any problem at all. This leads me to ask the question that if this is so then are there actually benefits to gambling? No one really knows because money devoted to research goes in one direction only on gambling prevention and addictive gambling. The academics would love the prevalence rate to fly higher than the one percent but as much as they have tried it just will not budge.  

Those of us that have been in the industry many years have noticed from our own personal observations that gamblers in later years are more lucid and alert than none gamblers. Think about the number of calculations a punter must make before placing a horserace bet. Has the horse won over the distance, what are its current times, does it have a good jockey, is the stable in form, the list is endless and quite taxing on the brain. If Sudoku prevents Alzheimer's gambling on horses must do also.  

When the customer goes into a shop he is in charge of his own decisions. At work he is told what to do day in day out. In the betting shop he makes his own decisions with real money and lives with the consequences. Does this make the punter better able to understand risk than the person who does not gamble? I don't know no because no one has done the research. That is what is required money to research the positives, if any, or otherwise of gambling.