GoLoud Cash Machine

I'd take the odd punt on a horse or even (for my stupidity) buy a lotto ticket, though I wouldn't stand in a queue to buy one.

On the other hand my daughter doesn't gamble on horses, or the lottery, but I was surprised to learn she plays this game. I think it's insidious how it has such a captive market, and potentially deceptive in terms of being pitched as just a bit of fun, but may really be a money making racket.

My view would be that the law should regulate any competition for prizes open to the general public, or with say more than 20 people entered so they have to publish after each competition, a statement of income, payouts and profit. That's the only way to know what you are buying in to.

As to whether money making draws are an appropriate use for regulated radio/TV airwaves, that's a completely separate question which should be regulated separately in my opinion.

It's not really about addiction per-se. It's more about people being ripped off and not knowing what they are buying into. If you're spending €30 a week on coffee, you know exactly what you're getting. If the coffee is not up to scratch in one place, you go somewhere else and so on. And you know the "investment" is not going to solve your financial woes.

With gambling there has to be some level of transparency about the odds. You get that with the lotto and there is some degree of transparency with horse racing too. I said in my last post that competitions for prizes should be regulated as gambling, but what I left out, was "competitions for prizes that cost money to enter". There is the odd radio competition where the show is offered a free prize and it's done on a free entry basis. That's the kind of vibe that these competitions have, but once money is charged to enter, it's a different ball game and should have different rules imo.

I suspect you need to look at the listenership for their stations and some significant percentage of that is playing this regularly. That might give some range estimate of the revenue they are pulling in. Anecdotal, but I was just speaking to a young person (Spin listener) who said she plays it once a week. The advertising of it is so pervasive, you have to assume this is happening. It really should be regulated.

KPMG are there to oversee the Lotto draw. With the sums of money now involved in the 'Cash Machine' , is anyone keeping an eye on what is going on ?

I just looked at the UK version of this competition and I noticed one curious thing. It costs £2 to enter by SMS, or else you can enter online for free. I wonder is that to avoid some aspect of regulation by claiming it's a free entry competition. The online entry makes you go through a few annoying captchas, which I presume is to stop automated entries, but they don't want to make it too easy to enter for free either 😋

And needless to say even that option isn't available here.