By promoting the lottery on the one hand ”“ but liberalising gaming on the other ”“ the government has created its own, rather odd Camelot. Gambling has become an act of civic responsibility. It is something for all the family to enjoy. The great personal dream of citizens, one which children are encouraged to aspire, is win some impossible jackpot and never work again.
Through the cunning expedient of funding good causes, the government has silenced criticism from those who might otherwise have had qualms about its sleazy, back-scratching arrangement with the gaming industry. The national lottery is, in the words of Camelot, “serving the nation’s dreams”.
Last year, online gambling in the UK reached an all-time high, according to a recent ICM poll.
Was not lottery the big civic duty-vice in Orwell’s 1984?