All Bets Are Off, RTÉ One, Monday, April 23rd at 9.35pm
All Bets Are Off considers the colourful and contagious world of gambling. From the bingo, to the bookies and the charge to Cheltenham every year it’s fair to say Ireland takes gambling very seriously. It is normalised. Endemic. Part of who we are.
In truth, when it comes to gambling, we’re the biggest losers online and the third biggest losers in the world, per adult resident.
But the figures pale in comparison to the suffering caused by problem gambling.
Baz speaks to Tony O’Reilly, the post office manager who stole €1.75m from An Post to feed his addiction. They meet in Carrickfergus, Co. Antrim where Tony ended up when, finally rumbled by his employer. He went on the run. It’s Tony’s first time returning to harbour town since the PSNI knocked on his hotel bedroom door back in 2011.
In county Laois, Baz hears how 25-year old Podge Bannon was blinded by the bright lights of the bookies, the free bets, and the chance of winning life changing amounts of money – he stayed because he couldn’t leave.
There’s Nora, whose scratch card addiction escalated following the sudden death of her partner, and Gita Shah, who explains how her father’s compulsion to gamble continues to cast a shadow over her life and that of her family.
Offaly footballer, Niall McNamee, documents what he has lost through his exposure to the other ‘game’.