Gambling

I am not really a gambler and never have been. Except for the past year, that is, when I have dabbled with gambling, although admittedly in a very humble, tiny way. I am to gambling what Alex Inglethorpe - the new Exeter City manager - is to football management: a total rookie and likely failure.

It started with buying the occasional National Lottery 'Scratchcard'. The ones I buy only cost £1 so there isn't much to lose - as long as you only buy the occasional one. I've bought about 40 in the past year and probably won about £20. They say on the ticket that your chances are about 1: 4.11 so that isn't too bad. Anyway, a significant portion of the proceeds go to charity and 'good causes', whatever they are. I think this includes various sporting and arts projects around the country; probably the same as the fine, brand new 'Football Foundation' pavilion in Sidford, just at the start of the Byes, one of my favourite walks going down to the sea at Sidmouth.

My favourite Lottery ticket is the £1, win £100,000 scratchcard. Who knows, maybe one day 'it will be me'! They now have a whole variety, themed around various things like Scrabble, Irish good luck, hobgoblins and various other stuff, though most have only top prizes less than £10,000. Of course, some cost as much as £5, which is getting bloody ridiculous, even if you do get about three games on one scratchcard.

When I cashed my cheque today, at the Post Office (with its usually enormous queues and stuff due to the management closing all of the smaller branches around Exeter), I noticed on the actual counter itself, on the other side of the till, some scratchcards for the Poppy Appeal. The top prize is only £10,000 but, since I normally try and buy a paper poppy on about a £1 contribution at this time of year, then I don't mind at all. It's run by the Royal British Legion which I assume is the same scheme as the traditional 'Haig Fund' (always embossed on the small black plastic centre of the poppy).

It says on the card 'Your best way to say thank you'. Is it? It makes a change from the National Lottery's ubiquitous and irritating 'It could be you!' Their crossed fingers logo ('trademark') stares at you from outside nearly every newsagent and supermarket in the country, visible on every pavement, and sums up the new ideology of the nation - blind hope! It could be the new symbol of the Labour Party or the Conservative Party, instead of the red rose or the olympic torch.

But, just suppose the Poppy Appeal and the Haig fund had as their logo a hand as well. Not crossed fingers; no, instead the despairing, corroding hand of the dead soldier in No Mans Land, sticking out of the mud, almost pointing up at the sky, just like in the famous book and film All Quiet on the Western Front. Erich Maria Remarque would be proud of that, though perhaps not Ernst Junger.


My other little gambling vice is spending about £2, occasionally, on the Weekend Coupon at Ladbrokes, on the football. Really, it's about the same as doing the traditional pools at Littlewoods (who run the Poppy scratchcard), Vernons or whoever. You get this large coupon listing all of the weekend matches and then you select basically whatever you want - a certain number of home wins, away wins and stuff like that. I've done that about eight times in the past year, all with decreasing success.

Actually, my favourite bookmakers is the Coral shop near the old Carfax in Exeter, the intersection of South Street, North Street, High Street and Fore Street. But the other option is Ladbrokes in South Street or Sidwell Street. They are really quite welcoming these days, nice furniture, drinks machines (which I can never afford even though it's just 40p or something for a coffee) and a generally decent ambience, if you don't mind thirty television sets beaming down anything from greyhound racing, speedway, baseball, football and snooker, pool, etc. All of this is accompanied by - particularly in the afternoon, when it all gets underway - anything up to about thirty shabbily dressed old men, chain-smoking, all peering desperately up at the screens showing horse racing, either cheering wildly and desperately or cursing their luck as they tear up a little slip of white paper before discarding it on the floor, head bowed.

The other notable feature of any betting shop is the TOTAL absence of women. You simply do not see women in betting shops (unless you include the odd woman behind the till). The true fanatic - if the object of his betting is not being broadcast live on television - will even gaze maniacally at Teletext, anything to find out how the action is going.

My first three attempts - select seven home wins - failed on just one result (ie., I got six wins out of seven). But I've given up since then.

My final gambling fix is actually forced upon me and occurs in the Mint pub in Fore Street. I love this pub and used to go there too much - in my early days after returning to Exeter, I used to go there three or four times a week, wasting loads of money on drinking, cigarettes and generally getting drunk to blot out my failure in life. I've cut down since but still go there once a fortnight or so. If only I could cut down on my failure, too. Or even reverse it. Now, you really would get great odds on that (1-1000, I reckon).

There is a bloke there - let's call him SB - who always insists on a game of pool. Then, even if I suggest a 'friendly' game (ie., for no bet) he repeats 'just for a pint! just a pint!' which I usually manage to reduce to a £1 bet. He always wins, of course, mainly because he's a pool fanatic and is on about his eighth match by the time you play him, thoroughly warmed up and flowing with the game. I try and avoid him now.

As for the new Gambling Act, it should be ditched immediately. The Labour government is determined to turn the nation into a bunch of gambling junkies. Is it to get people to cling to some blind, crazy idea that their only way out in life is to win a million in some giant casino? The whole thing is a disgrace, summed up by the Daily Mail recently who talk of the Labour Party - that historic beacon of hope for poor people nationwide - selling out to giant gambling conglomerates. £50 million casinos mushrooming up all over the country, apparantly.