9 March 2010 | Serbian bloggers are angry about the pervasiveness of gambling in the country, fearing its corrosive effects on society at large. Some claim the national lottery is nothing more than state sponsored fraud.

A former gambler, Dejan Stankovic is the founder of the SOS Gambling Helpline in Serbia. Having lived through and heard scores of stories of personal ruin from gambling addicts, Stankovic is taking the Serbian Lottery to task, along with broadcasters who promote gambling.

He is particularly upset with state run television and the commercial network, TV Pink, and promotions for the mobile lottery Mobto.

"Citizens are lured into playing the lottery, bingo, mobile lottery Mobto … without being warned about the damaging nature of gambling," Stankovic said at a recent news conference.

He called on TV stations to place the helpline telephone number on the screen during gambling-related broadcasts, and urged all lottery organisers to publicise the number where tickets are sold.

Stankovic estimates that almost half of Serbia's 7.3 million citizens play some sort of lottery. Statistics suggest that a fifth of people who take a chance on the lottery and other public gambling games are "at risk" of becoming gambling addicts.

Just before Stankovic's press conference, Serbia's state TV canceled the lottery's "Our car to our viewers" promotion in which viewers could win a Fiat Punto by sending text messages. Comments on Stankovic's blog [all links lead to blogs in Serbian] suggests the public realises they pay for gambling in more ways than one.

Sistemin explains how widespread the problem is in his town of Varvarin, population 2,500. "[It] has five casinos with roulettes open 24 hours and as many sports betting venues, plus TV gambling such as lottery and bingo."

Zemunac and Stetak-Marko joined Sistemin in slamming state lottery promotions on government-owned television. "While Serbian citizens are paying the subscription [for state TV, it is] ruthlessly and aggressively leading citizens to gamble. … As far as I know, the state TV is a service for citizens, not a service meant to rob increasingly poor people," says Zemunac.

Stetak-Marko argued that telephone lottery games are pure fraud, having nothing to do with luck. "There is no chance for anyone to win until the organiser secures his share … everything is rigged."

Others, like dezoksiribonukleinska-kiselina, said the lottery is manipulated. "The trick is that no one wins for weeks and when the jackpot increases so does the number of players. ... The jackpot is not drawn for months and it reaches record-breaking 42 million ... that's a classic case of fraud."

To Marina, the state is systematically and subtly destroying people by promoting vice. "One should expect them to start advertising drug abuse and prostitution as well … when the system starts falling apart those three vices flourish."

She sees the specter of the past decade when BINGO became a gambling of choice -- affecting her family. "I'm having a hard time explaining to my kids, who are in terms of age close to being attracted to something like that, that gambling is an evil! Remember when BINGO was launched and you'll understand the whole thing. We are going back into the 1990s."

*This text is courtesy of the Southeast European Times (SET), a web site sponsored by the US Department of Defense in support of UN Resolution 1244, designed to provide an international audience with a portal to a broad range of information about Southeastern Europe. It highlights movement toward greater regional stability and steps governments take toward integration into European institutions. SET also focuses on developments that hinder both terrorist activity and support for terrorism in the region.

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