You don't go paintballing for £20 full stop 😄

Craig,

I had never heard of this guy and my first reaction is that he was massively overly dramatic in his response to your tweet. He clearly identified you and posted his video without having the courtesy to give you a right of reply to balance his content. The somewhat repetitive and dogmatic way that he attacked you personally about you “appalling response” or your “sense of entitlement” was directed at you on a personal level and went on to try and articulate his interpretation of your own views.

Whilst your tweet was not very clearly worded, you must have been furious as this form of trolling is harder to dismiss than the huge number of expletive strewn criticisms that you undoubtedly receive each time you log in.

I have now watched a few of his videos and his begrudged and somewhat insincere and cack- handed partial apology to you was genuinely cringeworthy. I do not think he is a bad guy and his reasons for posting are probably well meaning – he is just not very good at it.

I would have to comment that attacking Dazza for releasing videos during the lockdown is monumentally unfair and why would he single him out. Dazza G, as far as I am aware, is a great guy universally liked by his contemporaries and was undeserving of this treatment. Indeed, it did cause him to hugely reduce his content. The only reason I do not watch him is that the level of swearing during his Bonanza bonuses is just too much however my over arching impression is that Dazza is one of the good guys.

Without expressing any form of sycophancy at all, I would place you in the same bracket. I cannot believe that he would pick on the likes of Dazza and not direct his ire at Chipmonkz who spew out content multiple times per day.

The readers will see from my posting history on the UKGC that I think reform and ongoing review is required. Gambling is addictive and therefore dangerous. Is it any more dangerous than say alcohol or obesity? Casino affiliation obviously promotes gambling in the same way that Diageo or McDonalds promotes alcohol or fatty foods. For most consumers it is nothing to be concerned about. The thirst for gambling, alcoholic beverages or unhealthy food is quenched for most people quite easily and for a minority it does cause issues.

Affiliation is PART of the gambling issues in the UK however it is only exceedingly small part of the issue in a proportion to all the other component issues. Anyone who has visited Gamblers Den will see that both yourself and Jimbo respond quickly to members who air problems and as such you are responsive and are not playing lip service to your responsibilities to your subscribers.

To conclude, I feel that this guy is well intentioned and just not particularly good at what he does. His videos on Youtube are very dull, simply because he is dull, and he is trying to create controversy with videos such at the one directed at you. An ex gambler who posts informative content on the Gamblers Den channel would be fantastic however it would not be this guy.

Just my initial thoughts

The follow up video was actually worse. I think there is a clear need for a person to explain addiction, the pitfalls and the escape route for those people who find themselvs in varying forms of difficulty.

I have no doubt Phil is genuinely well intentioned and as a recovering addict he is able to understand the emotions of an addicted gambler as only an addicted gambler could. By attacking others, he risks deflection, and he simply reinforces the misconception that an addicted gambler's issues are anything other than self-inflicted.

I would imagine that for every addict one of the most important realisations has to be, "this is all my doing - no ifs, no buts and if they are going to recover they've got to be the first person to want to fix it.  Any deflection is wholly counterproductive.

I seen an interview with Neil Channing who is a wonderful story teller with an engaging personality who can talk about all aspects of gambling readily and expansively. He can hold the crowd like a story teller and is unerringly positive.

Of course problem and recovering addicts need good advice but it needs to be delivered positively in a friendly way whilst never sugar coating the viewer that the predicament that they find themselves in is down to them and them alone.

I hope he manages to recover fully though and rid himself of the urge to gamble permanently.

This guy has a video where he shows guys smashing up FOBT's and thinks it is funny and entertaining. As the video progresses he does expain why this is not funny nor entertaining however the vert fact he has sought to use the clips at all is concerning.

I would guess that 95% of the viewers on here would view these clips with a great deal of empathy for the player who has reached breaking point to the level where vandalising a FOBT on camera in a bookies seems like a sensible course of action. For the most part these are going to be folks in genuine trouble and at the end of their tether. To dehumanise these acts and the people in them to clickbait to laugh at in any way is not the actions of someone who is totally on board with helping others.

A few years ago I was seconded to a company with a head office populated moslty by younger women and I often would join them for lunch and become involved in their conversations. The one I recall most vividly surrounded Britney Spears who had underwent some form of breakdown. The office girls were utterly ruthless in their condemnation of her actions such as shaving her hair off and allowing compromising photographs of her to be taken. Now I had heard her name and knew that she was a popstar however that was all I knew. Whether the vitriol against her was fuelled through jealousy, ignorance or simply voyeurism - it caused me to respond to the group of girls like this "She may be rich and famous but she's somebody's daughter, someone's sister and someone's best friend and you are talking about her like she's nothing. Imagine for a moment that this girl who you have never met is replaced by your little sister or your best friend and everyone was talikng about her like that". The mood changed and there was a realisation from genuinely nice people that this "rubber necking" of this girl falling from grace, even in a celebrity world, was not nice.

It is of course human nature to make fun of others but not when you are being holier than thou and putting yourself in the role of helper/advisor.

I have viewed a few of his videos now and I have warmed to him a bit. He has iin the past posted useful content and genuinely he may have just run out of content and is scrambling around for something to say. There is also a distinct possibility that he has become angry with himself and directed his anger at you by proxy.

My initial thought was 'fucking hell Craig, what happened lad? You've let yourself go there'. Then i realised the chap in Craig's response thumbnail was the other guy 😂