SIMON THOMAS
Ask Simon
Each month, Hippodrome Casino’s Executive Chairman, Simon Thomas, answers your industry questions. Keep ‘em coming…
Simon says…
QUESTION: I have spent most of my working life in the casino industry and have always supported sensible regulation. Recently, however, it feels as though policymakers have stopped asking how to reduce gambling harm and started asking how to reduce gambling itself. Am I imagining this, or are we seeing a fundamental shift in how regulators and public health bodies view our industry?
You’re not alone in thinking this, and it’s something that concerns me a great deal. To begin with, a memory that brought things vividly to life. I recently came across a passage from Raymond Chandler’s classic work of noir, The Long Goodbye. In a characteristic quip, the careworn detective Philip Marlowe observes: “If a guy loses his paycheque at a crap table, stop gambling. If he gets drunk, stop liquor. If he kills somebody in a car crash, stop making automobiles. If he gets pinched with a girl in a hotel room, stop sexual intercourse. If he falls downstairs, stop building houses.”
The quote may be decades old, but it feels remarkably relevant today.
We live in an age of technical wonder and ingenuity but despite this there remains a tendency to identify prohibition as the answer to our problems.
That mindset now poses a growing threat not only to gambling, but to broader questions of personal freedom, adult responsibility and economic prosperity.
A little personal history… I have worked in the gambling and entertainment industry for more than 30 years, maintaining a tradition inherited from my father, grandfather and four more generations before them. It is an industry that I love, one that continues to excite me and gives me immense satisfaction because it allows me to create places where people can enjoy themselves. I’m aware of course that, as with all industries and activities, gambling is not without its problems. And as my old friend Professor Peter Collins wrote: “Gambling addiction is as real as drug addiction and alcoholism. It has the same claim to be thought of, and treated as, a psychological illness as these other more familiar conditions.” He was absolutely right.
12 JUNE 2026
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