From horseracing to football pools - the history of gambling

Government plans for a new gambling bill could result in Las Vegas-style super casinos appearing across the country. But with critics fearing that it would lead to a rise in gambling addiction in the UK, the debate around the proposals rumbles on.

Professor Bob Harris, who will be presenting at the forthcoming Discovery Days in January, has a unique viewpoint on the gambling debate, through his research interest in the history of 'gaming'. Here, he provides an overview of some of the 'highlights' of the history of gambling in Britain.

To the historian, the current controversy over the proposed gambling bill has a familiar ring. In the 1930s and 1960s, new opportunities for betting led to legislation which was seen as permissive and at the same time restrictive. In the 1930s it was dog-racing, the poor man's horse racing, the rapid expansion of the football pools, and the introduction of the totalizator at racecourses. In the 60s, new legislation, the Betting and Gaming Act (1960), which legalised cash betting off the course, led to the rise of bingo halls and betting shops, which, in turn, led to the Gaming Bill of 1968 which sought to reduce the number of gambling clubs. Today, it’s the exponential growth of internet betting.

The nineteenth and early twentieth century had by contrast seen purely restrictive legislation, although this had not been particularly effective. Had Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell described having a bet as a bit of fun between say the 1820s and the early 1900s, the reaction would have much more severe than today, especially from the highly vocal religious groups.

Victorian and Edwardian legislation was also a reaction against the eighteenth century when opportunities for gambling, at all social levels, had multiplied at dizzying speed. Betting was, for example, key to the development of cricket as a rule-governed sport in the mid eighteenth century. Where money was at stake, and often a great deal of it, rules really did matter.

Did people in the eighteenth century worry about gambling? Some did certainly, and the stereotype of the problem gambler which haunts much media coverage today, albeit usually seen from the psychologist's perspective, emerged very clearly during the century. Others, particularly from amongst the growing ranks of evangelicals in the later eighteenth century, focused on women and gambling. 'No disease', said one, 'requires more immediate remedy, becomes more incurable, can render your daughters more odious, or involve them in greater danger.'

Lower class gambling worried many. However, the plain fact was that the powerful and influential in society - the landed elites - were, with few exceptions, inveterate gamblers, and thus not disposed to restriction. Beyond the ranks of the super wealthy, moreover, most betting seems to have been for relatively modest amounts; it was not irrational; indeed, it could be incredibly methodical. The same incidentally seems to have been true for working class people gambling in the interwar period.

Perhaps there is one further lesson from the past. Debates about gambling are always about far more than simply the morality and desirability of betting.