IT NEVER ceases to amaze me that people think Britain has a massive gambling problem. All the evidence shows that isn’t the case, but every so often the English tabloids will have an outbreak of feigned moral outrage on the subject, despite every newspaper and broadcaster in the country giving massive publicity to the one thing that has encouraged more gambling than anything else – the National Lottery.

On that day in 1994, when the balls first fell, the National Lottery changed Britain. Overnight it not only became acceptable to indulge in gambling, it was seen as your national duty to do so to help the good causes. On and on sailed the good ship Lotto, and yes, I’ll keep playing, and as for the begging letters – when I win, I’ll still send them. It’s undeniable that more people in the UK are gambling, and I suspect that, as well as the Lottery, for most it’s about having the occasional flutter on the horses or maybe going to the bingo or a casino.

What is not happening is a massive growth in problem gambling. The Scottish Health Survey shows the number of people gambling is decreasing. The 2014 survey found 65% per cent of adults aged 16 or over had spent money on gambling activity in the 12 months prior to the interview. The 2013 figure was 66 per cent and in 2012 it was 70 per cent.

Again, quoting government statistics: “It is estimated that in 2014 almost one in 100 Scottish adults (0.8 per cent of the adult population, or aboutaround 36,000 people) were problem gamblers, based on two standard measures. A further 1.5 per cent (aboutaround 67,000 adults) were likely to be at risk of gambling problems, based on a standard risk questionnaire.”

Those are bad stats – 100,000 people shouldn’t be having gambling problems or be at risk of them. Nevertheless, they are not overwhelming, so why are Scottish politicians seriously considering the banning of just one form of gambling, namely fixed odds betting terminals (FOBTs) from our high streets?

Cards on the table, so to speak. I started life working as a bookmaker’s clerk in Glasgow for the excellent firm then run by Tom and Jack Smith. It was an education in life as well as bookmaking, and I have never forgotten my summer days in their shop in Robroyston, that salubrious suburb north of the city centre.

I saw things that would make you weep, men throwing their pay packets over the counter, but we always took their bets – as Tom Smith always said, it is their money and their choice what they do with it. That remains my gut feeling.

If someone is in the grip of a gambling addiction – I know, I’ve nearly been there – then the only person who can cure that addiction is the gambler. He or – increasingly, these days – she must address his or her issues and deal with them.

In the bad old days, bookmakers would never stop an addict gambling. It’s a changing culture these days – their shops are now festooned with adverts warning about responsible gambling, and staff, at least in the big chains, are encouraged to sport the signs of problem gambling.

There is also a veryalso very useful “self-exclusion” scheme that is now operated by most gambling establishments, in which the gambler realises he or she has a problem and volunteers to be excluded.

There is nothing in the world any bookmaker can do to stop people betting, as was proven to me recently with the case of a friend. Even if that gambler is self-excluded from all betting shops in the vicinity of his home, he can simply go online and avail himself of his fix. There are myriad gambling websites out there, and nobody is doing anything to regulate them. Personally, I do not like FOBTs and I have always warned that they could become addictive. ButYet to ban them will damage a sport I love deeply, namely horse racing.

That is why I am asking Kevin Stewart MSP and his local government committee to think very seriously about their campaign – for that is what it is – to have FOBTs banned from high street betting shops. FOBTs keep betting shops alive. They earn on average between £400 and £600 per machine and each shop can have up to four.

Without those machines, many betting shops would become instantly unviable and would close, putting hundreds out of work and losing local government an average of £11,000 in annual business rates per shop.

Racing would also lose millions because the sport’s funding, whether we like it or not, depends on bookmakers’ profits and showing the sport in betting shops every day directly funds racing.

The big bookmakers have already reacted to criticism and have halved the maximum stake on FOBTs to £50. That is a responsible approach and more is being done to address the issues of problem gambling and FOBTs. The bookies should be given the benefit of the doubt here, because they are not ignoring the matter as they used to do and see education as a prime tool in combatting problems.

There’s a more fundamental issue involved in such a ban, and it’s a question of freedom. Even if FOBTs are the “crack cocaine” of betting, should the Scottish government be getting involved in banning them? And Wouldn’t it be madness to ban something which will still be available elsewhere in the UK, and which will merely drive determined problem gamblers online?

There are many, many issues which the newly-devolved powers of the Scottish parliament should be used to address. ButBut if the first usage includes a ban on FOBTs, it will be meat and drink to the Unionist media; who will yet again say that the Scottish government is reactionary and repressive, and attacks adult freedoms aboutover a perceived problem, which may be nowhere near as bad as some people claim, and on which no independent research exists. As an SNP member, it gives me no pleasure to say they would be right.