So, somethings the matter. I am going to have to actually write something I am passionate about. That can be difficult. Sometimes its better to write about something you only vaguely care about, that way you can keep your head and stay above the issue. But right now I’m landing myself in the thick of it. We’re one — nil down in the 4th minute of extra time, the ball has just been kicked to me and a swarm of bodies are rushing towards me. From here on out I’m not going to write anything with any thought, just instincts. My eyes are closed and I’m just running and kicking, running and kicking, until I run into a the goal, a wall or a dinner lady.

This issue dawned upon me when watching football. Slumped in my half time stupor, as I was for most half times of this god awful season, a huge fleshy head popped up over my TV screen. It was Ray Winston, Ray fucking Winston, but just his cleanly severed head, bobbing back and forward like a cock in a bath, with lasers shooting out of his neck hole and numbers darting around his eyes.

“Have some of that,” he said.

“I don’t want any.” I mumbled, cowering into my seat, terrified and hungover.

“That’s what I call in-play!”

“Leave me alone.”

As it turns out, Ray visited me to give me some friendly financial advice. Urging me to invest my money into what happened next in the match. If I know one thing, it’s that investing in what happens next isn’t a skill many have, and I am no exception. If Danny Dyer popped out of my toaster a minute earlier and offered me a chance to bet on the chance that a big bollocky Ray Winston head was about to come out of my TV, I would have stuffed Danny’s little face back in the toaster and hid in the bedroom. My wallet would have stayed firmly in my pocket. You just never really know what’s going to happen, and the massive lolling head of Mr Winston undulating before me was living proof of that fact.

I explained this to him and Ray, to be fair, seemed to understand and soon enough he vanished, and everything returned to normal — sofa adverts, Steve McMannaman completely unbiased punditry on Manchester United, and another home defeat to Romiley FC or whoever David Moyes claimed that we were just unlucky against. But wouldn’t you know it, one week later, Ray came back, this time before the football. And he wasn’t alone. There were trumpet playing spaniards popping out of toilet roll towers, gangs of blokes with individual gambling personas and screaming numbers stretched across the entire TV screen. All of them doing their very best to make me feel like the money was there for the taking.

From the pools to poker, gambling has been here and loved for years, so it must have its place. But each week these everyman financial advisors have taken up more and more airtime, until the role between advertisement and programming has switched places. During the World Cup it felt like football itself became just the subtext for a the big betting show. With these bookmakers taking up more and more airtime, costing millions and millions, with increasingly high budget adverts, I can’t help but draw parallels with the beautiful and mesmerising Vegas lights and that famous phrase, ‘This town wasn’t built on winners’.

What distinguishes these adverts from any other is that they are advertising a service to people where they just might get something in return. They use more and more sophisticated tactics to convince people that they have a good chance of ‘winning’. Cashback, free bets, multi-play, in-play — all at the touch of a button on mobile devices — all with hidden quirks and rules that will ensure the house always wins.

Where this worries me is that gambling, in the wrong hands, is quite a destructive force. It’s an addiction, and one that with mobile technology has a unique ability to be indulged in almost complete stealth. A good old fashioned alcoholic’s salvation can often lie in how noticeable their addiction is. Friends, family or even complete strangers can notice something, and do something to help. Whereas anyone with an iPhone and a gambling problem can go completely unnoticed. Until the bailiffs come knocking that is.

To offset the blame, bookmakers place a little ‘gamble aware’ url in the deepest corner of each ad, which, safe to say, gets somewhat lost with amongst lasers firing out of Ray Winston’s neck. On the other hand, the code of advertising regulation on alcohol companies is vast by comparison. Imagine, in between Countdown, you are presented with an advert, with Ant and Dec offering you a lovely glass of wine that will pop straight out of the TV at the push of a button on your phone. You think, why not, and you give it a go. True to their word, a lovely free glass of wine appears for you. But once you’ve finished that one, you realise that you are obligated to have four more glasses. You think, fuck it, and continue to indulge in a bit of daytime drinking. By the time you’ve finished your obligatory course of wine, you’ve developed a taste now, and if you’re anything like me, you want more… “This town wasn’t built—”

Fuck you, I hear you say. We make our own choices, you say.

I agree, the majority of us will recognise danger and either stay away or just moderate ourselves to what we can afford. But they’re not after us; they’re after the potential addicts. Strong statement, I know. Here’s the evidence… Put in a Google Search for ‘I can’t stop gambling’. Who have the vast majority of sponsored adverts?

Google’s bidding system for sponsored ads mean that the results vary hour on hour, but I have put that search in every day into various machines for about a week now and number one is always a bookies or online casino, offering a ridiculous free betting bonus for new customers. Even if these ads are removed from google, doesn’t the fact that they existed in the first place say that we cannot trust these companies to practice ethical promotional strategies? Putting it simply, more regulation is needed. When morality gets in the way of money, sadly, the house always wins.