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According to some newspapers, Blackpool is about to become 'a vice den of gambling and lewd entertainment'.
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I trust you will agree with me that this is...absolutely excellent news. It's high time that rainy old seaside resort had a decent shake-up: roulette and chorus girls are just the thing.
The reason these delights are becoming possible is, of course, the new changes to our gambling laws. It's all loosening up: no more members-only, no more 'cooling-off periods' before you're allowed to play; no more bans on drinking at the table or limits on the fruit machine jackpot. Essentially, no more nanny State.
We really have had the most moth-eaten old legislation for far too long. A world of multi-million pound horse racing, televised poker tournaments, and the sparkling extravaganza which is the National Lottery, is dealt with in Britain by laws which talk about cribbage in ale-houses, and your chances of being accosted by a dastardly cut-purse in a shoddily maintained Brougham carriage. Well, pretty much. That's the gist.
But we are moving, at last, away from the laws of our grandfathers. Well, 'your' grandfathers... my own grandfather taught me to play blackjack at the kitchen table when I was seven years old. If my mother came in, he had to scrape the tuppenny pieces out of sight and pretend we were playing snap. Gambling tends to skip a generation. My parents simply don't understand why I want to spend my life in smoky basements, betting a week's salary on the turn of a card against wizened men in cheap tweed jackets. I say: "I don't! I want to gamble a month's salary on the spin of a wheel, in a giant Vegas-style palace on the Blackpool seafront!" It just hasn't been possible until now.
Don't talk to me about compulsive gambling. I know the drill. I've spent a fortnight's holiday eating bread because I lost all my dinner money at the local gaming club. I've had debts. But I reckon: I'm a single woman, 29 years old, with no responsibilities and the right to throw my money away wherever I like. It's just an expensive hobby, that's all.
Some people believe that the newly liberated gambling laws will create a nation of addicts. I think that's rubbish. Every friend I've got, every boyfriend I've ever dated, has been dragged at some stage down to the casino, and it's always the same story. They watch me at first with interest, and then with boredom, and then with horror. And then they go to the bar. It's not easy to create a gambling addict, you know - and I've tried harder than the Mecca bingo corporation. It's either in the blood or it isn't - and if it is, there have always been ways to gamble your money into dust.
The new freedom will just make betting more fun for those of us who already like it, and brighten up the British coastline. So, when the casinos start opening in Blackpool, I'll be the first one there. And if my Grandpa Sam was still around, I'd take him with me.
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RELATED LINKS | | | - Gamblers Anonymous
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