It still surprises the life out of us; how many people – supposedly adults – refuse to take responsibility for their own actions and mistakes. This story is a prime example; where a 37 year old gambling addict in France is suing the Government for €100K.
As long as he keeps blaming someone else for his actions, he will never come to terms with his problem. If he actually wins the case and gets the money in his hands; we will take odds of 20-1 that he gambles it right back again.
The reason why this problem online gambler is taking the government of France to court, is because they failed to prevent him from playing online poker. At least this is what his lawyer claims. As far as we are concerned his lawyer is encouraging the man to be irresponsible, when he should be learning a life lesson.
The lesson is, if you gamble more than you can afford you get burned. If you don’t learn from the lesson and keep making the same mistakes over and over again, then something is wrong with that person. This is what ‘experts’ label ‘problem gambling’. The government isn’t the problem, people are the problem.
With of issues like problem gambling, and people’s failure to take care of them-selves; gambling concerns and the Government put money aside to develop self-exclusion, exclusion and other programs. This gentleman registered himself with the Interior Ministry of Reims last year, to voluntarily be banned from online poker rooms, casinos or other gambling websites. His lawyer’s argument is that his client was still allowed access to gambling sites.
As far as we are concerned, his lawyer is an ambulance chaser of the worse kind to encourage a case like this, but what we think is besides the point. If this court case is won by the defendant it could set a dangerous precedent; where people get to blame their government and an exclude themselves from any blame.
The lawyer said that his client wished to remain un-named – I would be embarrassed too – and to quote the lawyers own words ~ “It’s all well and good to moralise about online games but we all know that they rely on the addiction and sickness of players.” If we were an online gambling site, we would take this lawyer to court, and sue him for being ignorant.
Online casino do not prey on the addiction of sick individuals, they offer a service which to the majority of people is just good entertaining fun. Does a pharmacy “rely on the addiction and sickness” of drug abusers? Because there are millions of ‘legal’ drug abusers who rely on their local pharmacies to get a fix. Again, people are the problem, not the drugs or the pharmacies.
Currently the gambling laws in France allow people addicted to gambling to register themselves with the Interior Ministry. The ministry provides list to gambling licensees and they are responsible for banning the names on these lists. Currently the list contains the names of 36 000 problem players, and we are keen to watch this space and see what happens next.