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ONLINE GAMBLING: City traders fall prey
By Astrid Wendlandt
The most significant rise in compulsive gambling this year has come from City traders applying their financial acumen to sports betting, according to addiction charities. Helplines have experienced a "considerable increase" in calls from traders who cannot stop gambling on the internet during working hours.
In the past year, 8 per cent of visitors to GamCare, a help centre, suffered from compulsive spread betting, while only 2 per cent played in casinos.
City traders are the most vulnerable to addiction to spread-betting - waging on the difference between a bookmaker's prediction and the actual result of an event - because they are convinced they can rely on their experience of calculating derivative prices to make quick profits. They also have day-long internet access.
IG Index, a spread-betting company, said: "It's the same principle, whether you bet on a Marks and Spencer's share price or on Michael Schumacher's Formula One points."
Charities are concerned. "A lot of firms do not want to believe their measures to prevent traders from getting into difficulty should be looked at. The City is reluctant to accept the link between gambling and the market," said Paul Bellringer, director of GamCare.
The fast growth of the online gambling industry has exacerbated the problem. According to GamCare, some 7,000 gambling sites already operate in the UK.
Charities have also started receiving calls from hapless day-traders, too buried in debt to stop dealing.
"Day-trading is just a new form of gambling," said one counsellor from Gamblers Anonymous. "The adrenalin one gets when making back losses is the same whether one gambles on a roulette or trades shares on the internet."
By Astrid Wendlandt
The most significant rise in compulsive gambling this year has come from City traders applying their financial acumen to sports betting, according to addiction charities. Helplines have experienced a "considerable increase" in calls from traders who cannot stop gambling on the internet during working hours.
In the past year, 8 per cent of visitors to GamCare, a help centre, suffered from compulsive spread betting, while only 2 per cent played in casinos.
City traders are the most vulnerable to addiction to spread-betting - waging on the difference between a bookmaker's prediction and the actual result of an event - because they are convinced they can rely on their experience of calculating derivative prices to make quick profits. They also have day-long internet access.
IG Index, a spread-betting company, said: "It's the same principle, whether you bet on a Marks and Spencer's share price or on Michael Schumacher's Formula One points."
Charities are concerned. "A lot of firms do not want to believe their measures to prevent traders from getting into difficulty should be looked at. The City is reluctant to accept the link between gambling and the market," said Paul Bellringer, director of GamCare.
The fast growth of the online gambling industry has exacerbated the problem. According to GamCare, some 7,000 gambling sites already operate in the UK.
Charities have also started receiving calls from hapless day-traders, too buried in debt to stop dealing.
"Day-trading is just a new form of gambling," said one counsellor from Gamblers Anonymous. "The adrenalin one gets when making back losses is the same whether one gambles on a roulette or trades shares on the internet."