Recently, while staying with family, I saw a segment of the TV commentary from a horse racing event in England. They were between races and the pundits were discussing new regulations that had been introduced around advertising for gambling products in sport. It caught my attention when the chair of the panel asked whether they (the government) “were doing enough”. “Enough” to address gambling, I assumed. I was wrong. The panel went on to discuss how the government were not doing enough to protect the revenues of gambling companies and the consequent loss of sponsorship revenues for the horse racing industry. Needless to say, I was surprised. Neither horse racing nor gambling, strike me as industries that are desperately in need of more money. (Revenue from online gambling on horse racing in Britain in 2023-2024 was £771 million. The total revenue from all types of gambling for the same period was £15.6 billion.) Of course, huge incomes for one part of an industry, don’t equate to similar incomes across the board, but surely when you’re calling for less regulation on gambling so that you can prop up the English horse racing industry, you’re on to a loser.
It was such a strikingly bad argument that I wanted to ask those pundits whether they actually believed what they were saying. Whether they believed that what they were calling for, was actually a good thing. I still wonder about it. No doubt those men care a lot about horse racing but if asked, whether propping up the horse racing industry through gambling, was a good thing, what would they have said?
Reflecting on it, I think it’s the type of question we don’t ask ourselves enough. Do I really believe in the things I’m saying or the position I’m advocating? And is that position ultimately a good thing, not just for your own industry but for people and the planet more broadly? I know I have worked in jobs that I didn’t believe in and have delivered projects that I saw little value in and, at the time, felt I couldn’t possibly question those things, but the disconnection I felt between what I believed in and what I was doing was more than just a superficial split. Gandhi said that “happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony” and in hindsight I can better understand now why I was so unhappy in those jobs and the stress and anxiety I felt as result. Of course, hindsight is 20:20 and asking awkward questions or challenging the system you’re working in is certainly not an easy thing to do, but the alternative – giving of your time, energy and talents, to something you don’t believe in and that ultimately isn’t good for society or the world – can be much worse.
