00:00Well, I thought it was shocking last year when I saw the figures, but this is just off
00:05the scale.
00:06You know, it's nearly three times as many in a period of three days on the first day
00:13of the season, and it just shows that really, you know, the gambling companies can't regulate
00:20themselves, and it's getting out of hand.
00:23I had a 45-year gambling addiction.
00:26It started off very slowly, but eventually I realised that I was addicted, and thankfully
00:32to my wife, she helped me stop, and it's been, like I say, nearly 10 years.
00:38So I've got vast experience of the gambling industry, how it's progressed over the years,
00:44and now it's just saturated with gambling companies, and everyone's fighting for the
00:50next generation, which is the worrying part, is that the kids coming through now have
00:55got a casino in their pocket with their phones, and they're, you know, very accessible to
01:02gambling products.
01:03Football was my game, you know, my passion, and, you know, I don't like to see the way
01:09football's going, you know, it's increasingly having adverts around the ground, you know,
01:14we managed to change the bit off the front of the shirts, me and my wife had a crusade
01:19on that, but that's just a small part, a very small part, you know, they need to do
01:24far more in football to make it safe for kids and families to go to games.
01:31Yeah, it started off, you know, as a hobby type thing, and it wasn't all the time, but
01:37as it gradually increased, you know, towards the end of my career, and after, you know,
01:44I suddenly realised that, yeah, I was an addict, you know, and, you know, I was gambling
01:50every day, and, you know, and you win, I had some, you know, good wins, but you always
01:58will go back to it, and that's why the gambling companies make a lot of money, because you're
02:04always giving the money back.
02:05Well, I'd like to see better regulations, you know, with the gambling industry, definitely,
02:12you know, we need this survey, fantastic by Bristol University, you know, to highlight,
02:19you know, that it's nearly three times as much as last year, and nothing's been done,
02:24so you know, it's time now for government and people, you know, in football to stand
02:29up and say, this is not right, you know, this is too much, and do something about it, not
02:36just talk about it, but do something about it, and like I say, I hope that the government
02:41and people in football will also listen and not just think of the big money all the time,
02:47which is what gambling companies can do, they can give a lot of money to different people,
02:52football and the government, and that sometimes overrides the safety aspect, and the misery
02:59it causes millions of people.
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