The hidden dangers in the games people play

Britons spend an incredible £40 billion-a-year on fruit machines alone and there are plenty of other games out there that are also looking to take your money.

It’s amazing, the games people play and the cost, which is anything but harmless fun. Simple little toys on your mobile phone, where you try to knock over bricks and beat the record you set yesterday, can be great to relax after a hard day.

However, other kinds of games can lead to massive debt and addiction, and Britain’s gaming obsession is only going to grow.

We already spend an astonishing £2 billion a year on gambling, and that’s just the internet version, not that occasional trip to the bookie’s or bingo hall. Fruit machines alone brought in, wait for it, £46 billion yes, billion in Britain in 2012.

That incredible figure brought calls from concerned MPs to impose limits on how much you can spend and what you can actually win.

On the train, we have our phones or iPads and can play harmless games, but even they are costing people a fortune. Candy Crush Saga, one of the most popular mobile games ever, was the biggest earner on both iPhones and iPads last year.

A rather childlike-looking game that involves coloured sweeties such as orange lozenges and red jelly beans, you’ll spy people everywhere playing it.

That lass in the office, who looks as if she’s feverishly texting someone with an important, work-related message, is much more likely to be lost in Candy Crush, determined to finish the next level before the day is through.

Even the Facebook site now has its own support groups dedicated to helping Candy Crush addicts a version of the game is available on their site.

Moving up a level on Candy Crush will only set you back a few pennies for extra “lives”, but so many play it that it brings the makers $1 million every single day! It is far from the only game that has Britons addicted. In fact, wherever you are, you can play games and risk losing cash.

Late-night TV casino shows see countless Brits tuning in, while even the more sensible older generation will admit they must have lost an awful lot of money over the years at the bingo, when they count it all up.

But now it’s the young ones, and the females at that, who are looking at their bank accounts and realising it’s all getting a bit too serious to be a game.

Candy Crush is far from the worst offender, but even it sees females aged 25-45 as its biggest, most obsessed customers, in a world of gaming that was once the preserve of young men.

These ladies can start a new game over the breakfast table on their laptop, keep it going on the train with a phone or tablet gadget, drop in now and then on their office computer, and return home to do it into the wee, small hours.

Ominously, that is no exaggeration Brits are playing games literally all day, and we even have a whole sub-industry growing around the experts who help them deal with their addictions.

For the majority of us, a bit of gaming even the occasional gamble, such as the Lotto or a fiver on the Grand National is just fun.

In fact, splashing out with a rueful smile and not expecting to win anything shows that for us it’s just a bit of a laugh. For some unfortunate game players, though, it can all get out of hand.

Perhaps it’s that one little win, and they start to think they can hit the jackpot one day. It’s reckoned there are a million gamblers in Britain who are dangerously close to full addiction, while many more are already totally addicted.

And middle-class doctors, lawyers and even judges are prominent among the statistics, with cases already seen of men and women on large salaries spending so much that they resort to burglary and petty crimes to fund their gambling habits.

The experts reckon they can explain why it’s becoming as big an issue for women as men, with just two words online gambling.

If it has always been a tad unseemly for a lady to stride into the local bookmaker’s and punt a few quid on the 3.30 at Newmarket, she has no such problems with the anonymity of the internet. Maybe she’s feeling down about work, or has lost her job or boyfriend.

Or maybe she’s just plain bored spending cash on a flutter or two is known to provide a rush of relief. Of course, it’s very momentary, and when you find yourself without cash for the groceries, it has become a gamble too far.

One senior Labour MP has admitted that gambling is now as big a problem for Britons as alcoholism and the figures are growing, not diminishing.

Over the next three years, Europe will see a rise of almost a third in the numbers a third more gamblers, a third more money thrown away, more games purchased, and more casinos opened, in cities and online. And all this is in an era where we are supposedly skint and the banks are in disarray.

Even worse for the rest of us, because many bookmakers base themselves overseas, our Government doesn’t even see huge amounts of tax money pouring in from it all.

They have just announced plans to chase after £300 million in overseas taxes, but many query how much of it they will track down. There are about half a million “problem gamblers” in Britain, with an average debt of £17,500 each.

The worried Gambling Commission reckon there could be nearly three million others who appear to be at risk of addiction. When you hear folk talk about trying to get to sleep but still seeing the bright lights of their mobile phone game, you know it has all gone a bit too far.

If it has begun to spiral out of control and keeps you awake with debt worries or because you want to get up and play all night then the game scene has become a nightmare.