Two speakers debate whether 60-65 million adults are truly addicted to gambling and whether that number is even real. They argue that governments profit from gambling taxes, creating a conflict of interest: if the state makes money from the industry, why would it regulate it to protect people from harm.
Chapters
If 60 to 65 million adults are hooked on gambling, that's a very huge number.
I don't agree totally with that number.
You feel that's understated or overstated?
Overstated.
You feel it's overstated?
I think so, except there is a metric to measure.
But gambling is now tush. I mean, it's now tush. You can download the app. I don't want to call their names.
So gambling is tush?
They found a way to make it fanciful.
I agree with you.
Do we have verifiable data? Because one of the things I know about us is that we are bad with numbers.
Correct.
That in itself is going to lead to many problems. So do we have any established record data as touching number of people in Nigeria, first and foremost, that are hooked on this?
I think that as much as we've seen different research work, and I've read a number of them quoting different numbers we always want to look at them with caution, either because the research is funded by the industry itself, and you know that it drives a negative narrative already on its own. There's also the researcher's bias that you want to look at. So if my interest is to say the industry is entirely bad, what I am going to be looking for will be stories of people who have experienced the negative aspect of the industry.
Are you saying the positive aspect of gambling?
I'm saying that gambling is amoral. Is neither good nor bad. It's interaction with it that makes it either of the two.
So you believe that there can be a moderate gambler?
I believe that people can fall within low risk.
Well, the idea of it is that you start from the low risk, correct? Then eventually the chance of you getting to the point where the risk is high is higher, as long as you've started, correct?
So again, it goes back to the platform, the gaming operators. If you keep players on the low risk the negative narrative would have been reduced. But because you are prioritizing making profits off the misery of your customers, they will want to make profit because that's why they're there. You want to make that profit because the regulator allows you to.
Who is the regulator?
The government.
Do you feel government regulates gambling?
I think that it would be unfair to say, to, to say that the government is currently not regulating. What we have seen is inadequate Regulation.
What do you— when you say regulation, what do you mean?
Safer gambling is just one of them.
Gambling organization, they pay tax?
Of course they do pay tax.
So it means the government also benefits from gambling?
Of course, of course they do. If government was not benefiting at all, gambling will be gone in a week or less.
So why would the government stop what they are gaining from?
Great.
So can we rightly say that the government is benefiting from the misery of the people?
I wouldn't say that. Declassified Podcast is now streaming on YouTube and Spotify.
