Online betting could turn into big gamble

A COUPLE of years ago my wife Karen warned me that if I opened an online betting account she would divorce me.

- JOHN KIERANS

Her view on gambling was simple – the bookie always wins so I might as well get my money and throw it in the River Boyne.

She wasn’t too far wrong in fairness but she was also ahead of her time.

She could see the potential problems that online betting could cause and how gambling on the mobile phone was far too easy and a recipe for disaster especially among young people.

As a wise man once told me there is a lot of drinking in a thousand quid – you could be partying for two weeks – but you can lose a grand gambling within minutes.

I have always enjoyed betting on horses and dogs since I was a kid.

I come from a family where colour TVs, fridges, washing machines, tumble dryers and even deposits for houses were bought with the profits of betting coups.

These were pre-planned and executed with military precision with greyhounds and horses we owned from Navan and Dundalk dog tracks, to Fairyhouse, Limerick, Clonmel, Cork, the Curragh and Cheltenham race tracks.