Page 3, 1st November 1968
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GAMBLERS cost Britain about £100 million a year for the support of their wives and families when they are sent to gaol for stealing and embezzling to support their activities, according to the annual report of the Churches' Council on Gambling.
The general secretary of the council, the Rev. Gordon E. Moody, says in his introduction to the report that the burden caused by compulsive gamblers on the economy is roughly equivalent to the total of taxes and levies on gambling.
Calling for a "Government
watchdog" to assess the social effects of gambling, the report says that although two committees have sat in 10 years to consider financial aid for horse racing from betting, there has been no committee to study its social effects.
Partly because of legislation, gambling is on the increase, and "it is not good enough that the Churches' Council on Gambling should be the only body which keeps the problem under regular review....
"Parliament, which has passed the laws which have occasioned the increase of gambling, must find some way
of assessing the results, in human terms, of their work."
Mr. Moody says those controlling the means of gambling gain political power in a variety of ways. "Commercialised gambling is proving a plant easy to rear. capable of great growth and very resistant to control."
He said most gambling appeared to be a response to a commercial opportunity rather than to an inward impulse. Financial stringency also led to an increase. Gamblers often became bankrupts or criminals, and a burden on charities or the State.
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