Gambling

It’s always puzzled me why there’s still such a taboo around gambling in the UK. If you count people who play the national lottery, more than 50 per cent of us have had a flutter over the past four weeks. And if you like to think of playing the lottery as making a charity donation rather than gambling (are you sure about that?), there’s still almost one in three of us who have gambled in the last month. Like most things, gambling needs to be done in moderation. Lose control and it can have disastrous life-changing effects. But the majority of people who enjoy a flutter manage to do so

I’ve written before of a ‘curse of Qatar’ that might explain misfortunes attending the Gulf state’s UK investments, of which the seven-years-delayed Chelsea Barracks redevelopment is an example. I also claim to have coined ‘curse of Canary Wharf’, a phenomenon afflicting not only financial tenants of the Docklands complex but visitors such as Gordon Brown, who never lived down his speech congratulating Lehman Brothers on ‘the contribution you make to the prosperity of Britain’ at the opening of the doomed bank’s office tower there. So the prospect of a renewed Qatari bid for Songbird, the corporate owner of Canary Wharf, fills me with foreboding. A first 295-pence-per-share offer by the

It is said that all you really need to know about casinos is that the house always wins. I wouldn’t bet on it this week. The supposed iron law of gambling is being tested in the more salubrious surroundings of the High Court, and cardsharps and casinos across the world are agog to see what happens. Phil Ivey vs Crockfords of Mayfair pits an American widely regarded as the world’s best poker player against Britain’s oldest and smartest casino. Although not, in this case, very smart in the intelligence sense. Ivey, 38, is suing the casino’s owner, Malaysia’s £21 billion Genting Group, after it refused to pay his £7.7 million

Great God, Vegas is an awful place. I realised this the moment I arrived. My cab driver — who’d been perfectly agreeable en route from the airport — mistook my post-flight sluggishness for reluctance to give him a tip, and drove off angrily cursing me as I fumbled in my pockets. The line just for the check-in desk was about a mile long. Everyone was fat and drunk and dressed for the beach. Outside it was too hot: 105°F at 5 p.m. Inside, it was too cold from the relentless air-conditioning. Everywhere had the style and charm and tastefulness of Redditch. By day three I’d had enough. ‘Don’t stay in Vegas

The jewel in the crown of the Cheltenham Festival – the Gold Cup – starts this afternoon at 3.20. And, unsurprisingly, today is also one of the biggest betting days of the year, with both bookies and punters hoping to recoup their losses – or improve on their winnings. We asked some of our experts who they will be putting their money on. Peter Oborne, The Spectator’s associate editor: Willie Mullins and Ruby Walsh is the combination to follow at this festival, on which basis I will be backing On His Own at decent odds of around 20-1. Robin Oakley, writer of The Turf column: I am going for Triolo

Home George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, outlined cuts of £11.5 billion from departmental spending for the tax-year beginning in 2015. David Gauke, a Treasury minister, gave a ‘firm commitment’ in a letter to backbenchers to introduce a transferable tax allowance of £750 between spouses and civil partners paying tax at the basic rate. This would benefit them by £150 a year at most, and not before the next election. Sir Mervyn King, retiring after ten years as governor of the Bank of England, was to be created a life peer. Mark Harper, the minister for immigration, broke his foot by falling off a table while dancing with his wife

My name’s Freddy and I’m an online gambling addict. The problem started a few years ago when I opened an account on Betfair.com. At first it was small bets on football games, maybe the odd greyhound. A fiver here, a tenner there. Click, click, click. It was fun. Pretty soon, however, the hobby had developed into a minor obsession. I moved on to the harder stuff: cricket, tennis, even X Factor results. I had some wins but more losses: £20; £30; oops, there goes a hundred. Click, click, click. Then I downloaded the Betfair app onto my phone. Tap, tap, tap. I realised things had gone too far when I