Expected reading time 6 mins
Last Updated: October 26, 2025
Written by Jon Bryan
Jon Bryan debated Matt Zarb-Cousins at the Battle of Ideas. Here, we reproduce Jon’s
speech.
IS GAMBLING IMMORAL?
‘How’s the poker going Uncle Jon?’, a nephew said to me two weeks ago?
‘Been to any more horse racing recently?’ a colleague said to me last month.
‘We’re in for the EuroMillions again this weekend,’ my partner said the other evening around the dinner table, as her work syndicate had come together again to go for the big one
‘Carlisle United will probably win again this weekend – get your money on it!’ a mate of mine says to me on a relatively frequent basis. Well, he does this year, now they have dropped down a league.
All of these are genuine things that are said to me, and no-one bats an eyelid or is concerned when talking about them. And why is that? It’s because gambling is a normal activity which we should not be afraid to admit to doing; and we should not be afraid to talk about. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with gambling, and there is nothing immoral about it. At all.
Now, I totally understand that there are people who, for whatever reason, have some sort of moral objection to gambling. This can be due to a particular religion, or a belief system that says it’s wrong to have lots of losers and only one winner.
Or it could be a simple belief that money and success should only come from hard work, not the luck of the dice, or the sheer chance of picking the right numbers to come out that weekend on the lottery.
I get that. And I have friends who subscribe to all, or some of those beliefs.
I remember working with someone who would never join in with any of the raffles at work, or the sweepstakes that we had for football world cups. He had a strict belief system that he just wouldn’t do that. I had no problem at all with that.
I used to play poker with my friends in a home game. One friend of mine would say he used to feel awful when he lost. But if he won, he felt truly terrible! Such was his Catholic upbringing and the guilt that he carried with him about it, which made him feel this way.
But none of the people I know who don’t like gambling want to prevent me from being able to do it. They don’t want to abolish or restrict gambling and impose onto me (and others) their own belief systems about a leisure activity which is enjoyed by millions of us.
Sadly, that ‘live and let live’ approach to gambling which I find amongst people I know, doesn’t always find its way into the minds of many politicians and commentators who are either looking to ban gambling, or restrict it, or use things like taxation as a method to have a go both at the gambling industry, and gamblers more generally.
Earlier this year in Parliament, there was a debate about gambling, and several MPs said what they thought.
Dr Beccy Cooper MP said:
‘Gambling is not simply a cultural pastime for people or a leisure facility; it is an addiction and it needs to be addressed appropriately.’
Politicians don’t have to be nuanced when they are making statements, but I don’t think it helps to generalize so much that you draw no distinction between someone who is addicted to gambling and needs specific help, and someone who puts a £5 bet on the football on twenty Saturdays in the year.
In the same debate Dan Carden MP called gambling a ‘pernicious habit’.
Jim Shannon MP, referred to ‘The scourge of gambling’.
And Dawn Butler MP stated that ‘Gambling facilities are more accessible than supermarkets’, (I’m not exactly sure how she is measuring that, or what point she is making), and she went on to complain that gambling premises had free Wi-Fi, and said that ‘Gambling is more addictive than heroin or tobacco’.
I find the complaint about free Wi-Fi a little peculiar, as she campaigned in the 2019 General Election for free broadband for everyone.
And we don’t get much better views from some people who work in the NHS in the Gambling Service. Dr Matt Gaskell has said ‘gambling is harmful to health’.
Making a blanket statement which is not backed up by the evidence is not ideal from the person who heads up the Northern Gambling Service.
So, when it comes to gambling, and a discussion about whether it is moral, or otherwise, I think we have a real problem with much of what is said by both politicians, commentators, and campaigners.
There seems to be a puritanical streak through much of what is said by people in high places, coupled with an illiberal attitude to an activity that is enjoyed by millions.
And that is a real problem.
In one of the readings for this session there is a figure from a survey where almost two-thirds of the public believed that people should have the right to gamble whenever they want.
And that’s good. And it also chimes with some of my own experiences since I started writing about gambling, as I find people I know just come up and want to talk to me about an activity that is often unhelpfully demonized by some sections of the media.
The people I know who gamble regularly do so because they enjoy it. They enjoy the roll of the dice, the spin of the wheel, the chance to be right by predicting the outcome of a sporting event.
Ordinary people enjoying a gamble as part of their life is something that they should not be ashamed about, and we should not shame them either.
It is an activity that has existed for thousands of years, and it is something that societies have become accustomed to, which is a good thing.
You may have a belief system that differs, and you might well think that it is an immoral thing to do. Fair enough. But that becomes a problem when it takes on a legislative form and begins to impose restrictions on the rest of us who want to gamble.
Once that view begins to prevent people from enjoying themselves, that moral view of gambling – that it is the wrong thing to be doing – starts to become (in my opinion) an immoral approach, as it prevents others from doing what they want to do.
A society is both more liberal and tolerant (and better!) when the disapproval by some of a particular activity doesn’t automatically lead to significant restrictions, or an outright ban on that activity.
Gambling is not immoral. I enjoy it, as do many others. It is a great thing to do.
Jon Bryan is a Gambling Writer and Poker Player. Find more of Jon’s articles for SlotsHawk and follow him on social media:
