It is surprising in this day and age of the Nanny state, when the state seeks to interfere in and control the minutiae of our daily lives, that Nanny still allows her subjects to indulge in “innocent” gambling and play bingo and use online bingo sites.
In fact advertising and marketing for bingo halls and bingo online, both in the printed media and on TV, is now rammed down our throat on a daily basis.
Given that Nanny disapproves of smoking, drinking, drug taking and our diet, why is it that she permits such an apparent inconsistency by allowing us to partake in something that in theory could be classed as addictive and “damaging” to our wellbeing?
It seems to me that Nanny is following the format so expertly laid out and explained in George Orwell’s “1984”, whereby the state allows the “common people” a small amount of freedom to “sin” (in “1984” the allowable “sins” were sex, porn, drinking and watching violent news reels) in order to be able to retain office and preside over a docile and subservient population.
The other salient fact in this apparent hypocrisy is that Nanny, via the National Lottery, rakes in a very nice ”little earner” for herself. Therefore she can hardly legislate against bingo and other variations of this form of “innocent” gambling, such as scratch cards.
Online bingo sites etc now offer punters the ability to purchase an online variation of the scratch card. Clearly, from the point of view of Nanny, anything that encourages people to use scratch card and become used to having a “weekly flutter” will have a ripple down effect and boost ticket sales for her own National Lottery.
In other words, it is in Nanny’s interests that we all indulge in the “vice” of gambling; it’s good for you and good for the state!
They do the same thing here in the US at the state levels encouraging lottery ticket gambling. The ads are everywhere on TV and other media, encouraging gambling. They of course discourage other tax revenues such as those procured from alcohol and most certainly tobacco, for which there is a zero tolerance policy in effect. But to make up for it, they promote gambling - and lots of it - all proceeds to "education" and by that, it means teachers' unions, to pay for exhorbinant salaries and pensions for teachers who can't teach but know how to ride the gravy train.
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