It sounds contradictory but a gauge as to how serious major bookmaker chains really are about customer protection, and not just focused on profit, is their preparedness to allow punters bet big and win; because right now often the only way of betting big is if you lose.

It’s a relatively small-picture matter but reflective of much bigger issues within the modern gambling culture.

With Cheltenham just a week away a remorseless flow of bookmaker advertising is going to turn into a flood, hard-selling an image of fun, excitement and that unique frisson which comes from backing your judgement.

For others, ordinarily immune to gambling’s charms, Cheltenham provides an opportunity for a temporary walk on the betting wild side, one facilitated by convenient digital avenues often cloaked in bookmaker caricatures which conjure images of cheeky-chappies chalking odds on a slate.

The less evocative reality is that betting is a ruthless corporate business, as fixated on generating shareholder profit as any other commercial enterprise. Last week's British Gambling Commission report which resulted in Paddy Power paying over €350,000 to a "socially responsible cause" was a glimpse into that hard-sell reality.

Concerns about one customer’s compulsive gambling on Fixed Odds Betting Terminals were passed up the line to senior managers but a report that this individual might be visiting a betting shop less frequently resulted in advice to take steps to both increase his visits, and time spent there.

FOBT’s are banned in Irish betting shops, which hardly make the issue of gambling addiction any less real here. Virtual racing is one dispiritingly obvious alternative, punters shouting encouragement to computer generated images and proving how some people really will bet on anything.

Voluntary settlement

Paddy Power put its hands up to the British report and as part of its voluntary settlement agreed to the commissioning of a review of its social responsibility controls, those industry protocols that all bookmaker chains sign up to and which sound good in theory but can fall down in practise.

Perhaps an indication of the seriousness with which Paddy Power has taken last week’s slap on the wrist might be gleaned from its new advertisement which features a spoof complaints department, another promotion with a ‘just-kidding’ tone which in the circumstances doesn’t come across as risqué so much as opportunist, and which, by referencing, this space too, presumably, contributes to justifying.

Behind its laddish motif is the reality that Paddy Power is a near €10 billion corporation with the betting exchange Betfair. It is a mammoth business success story.  Like its competitors, and all corporations, success is judged on the bottom-line, so the hard-sell is relentless. In such an environment, pious expressions of customer protection by any gambling firm can sound hollow in the face of hard-nosed commercial realities.

As with debates about alcohol or cigarettes there’s an obvious tension here between freedom of choice and fears about addiction. Gambling mightn’t kill those addicted to it but the wreckage it brings, including to those around them, is no less real, perhaps even more so now in a digital environment where advertising and inducements are so pervasive.

In theory it has never been a better time to be a punter because there’s never been a time when so much information has been so easily to hand. In reality it is information access which has strengthened bookmaker hands to an unprecedented level.

Armed with masses of data about individual betting patterns that establish winners and losers with a precision long removed from furtively approaching the counter with your head down, firms are able to effectively identify who they want betting with them, even for relatively small amounts.  What they don’t want is anyone betting with them with a habit of winning and these days they don’t have to.

The bookmaker of yore, standing on the box, didn’t have to take bets either but it was in a culture where the game of chance wasn’t completely one-sided. The old adage about the bookmaker never losing in the long run occasionally didn’t apply. Now it mostly does.

Closing accounts

It is a perfect business environment in which firms pour millions into attracting new punters, sweetening them into continuing to bet – but only if they lose. If punters don’t lose, anecdotal evidence abounds of firms closing accounts, restricting stakes or just refusing bets.

Small-scale suckers are the business model.  Flukey accumulator setbacks can be exchanged for publicity and all of it in the context of the one sure thing about gambling which is that no one is forced to bet. If, however, your firm is ringing you with special offers it’s the surest sign you are such a sucker.

The old bookmaker affectation of labelling themselves turf accountants has become a reality. It’s the perfect balance sheet, a shareholder goldmine. The only profitability question is how much, and since the profitability instinct is always towards bigger, the hustle to secure more and more of people’s gambling instinct keeps expanding.  In such an environment customer protection always risks being treated as an optional extra.

So one indicator of how seriously bookmaker corporations are about ultimately living up to their fine words about protecting the vulnerable is their readiness to risk even a little from the bottom line, maybe behave like hopelessly old-fashioned bookies and let shrewd punters come out ahead sometimes.

It’s hardly radical to expect licensed bookmakers to take bets up to a certain amount, with the risk of losing a minimum sum, even if a customer has a history of winning. And if not playing ball have their licence eligibility examined. It’s a system which operates legislatively in Australia so why not here?

Such a simple step might make big business sound more convincing when arguing in more grave contexts that it doesn’t treat its customers as mere marks.