December, Christmas time must be the worst time of year for all those families where the breadwinner or spouse is a gambler.

Gambling is an enormous problem in Malta today. And though we hear about illegal gambling and action taken to curb it, it is in fact legal gambling which is draining family's coffers, which is encouraging what is already a bad habit.

I can't think of a worse way for government coffers to be filled up than with the proceeds of an activity like gambling which is intrinsically mindless, odds defying and must in its very nature create many more losers than winners as well as a considerable number of casualties along the way.

Would governments be happy with the proceeds of prostitution or drug selling? No, so why do we so sanctify something as crazy as gambling?

So the news that the prizes for the lotto winnings are going to be increased was not good news at all, at least not in my non-gambling books.

We all know what happened because the Super Five went into serious hundreds of thousands. Trade stopped, no doubt children were denied basic necessities, families lived on chips or pastizzi for those weeks, people with low or state income borrowed money to buy many tickets hence increasing their debts, and on it goes. But somehow we think it is ok because this is legal gambling.

It is crucial that these gambling companies here do not increase the prizes to these ridiculous levels. Many people do it for fun, but many others are desperate, and will see the risk of indebting themselves more as the only way out of their misery.

Cigarettes carry a health warning, shouldn't gambling tickets?

Gambling is becoming very big business here. Not only because of the privatisation of our own old lotto department but because of all the internet gambling companies which are setting up locally. I can’t understand this country.

Why do we frown so heavily on dance clubs with semi-naked Russians, or licensed brothels so street soliciting could be curbed, but think nothing of the family man or woman blowing a month's wages away in a few hours. Who picks up the pieces in these situations?

I think gambling is a bad business. I put it on a par with other “businesses” like drugs and prostitution. It’s a shame we have these things and that people need them. If we think we should give people the choice to do things which are obviously bad for them we should at least control it better.

In the case of gambling it should mean far stricter limits on prize money to discourage the frenzy we have had lately. In the case of prostitution we would have licensed brothels where sexual health checks must be taken and condoms worn.

In the case of the drug industry give drug addicts the drugs they need rather than having them threatening our vulnerable elderly people because they are desperate for a line of coke, their heroin fix or whatever.

So many crazy crimes are linked to the drug addicts’ insatiable need for drugs here. I am not really clear as to why we prefer to allow this criminal activity to take place and endanger Malta’s most vulnerable people rather than treat addicts as the sick people they are and give them what they need rather than force them into crime.

Even in the almost 10 years I’ve spent chairing the Housing Authority, the only time we had to get involved in someone losing their home (from the ones we sell) was in a very sad case of gambling where the father was as sick as any drug addict who needs help not punishment.

People think gambling might give them a lotta lolly but those who don’t gamble have far more liquidity. It’s a modern scourge gambling, make no mistake. At Christmas time people get worse, families get left further behind, children suffer.

May I wish you a debt free December. Gambling only adds to your debts, only makes your desperate situation worse. Gambling is a public health risk on a par with smoking. But just as government taxes cigarettes and gambling and makes money out of both, it is not doing enough to curb the growth of the latter. Maybe next year it will.

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