MPMUM 09/10

Categories	Explanation
Social	- Teaching the people to find money the easy way through gambling - Encouraging more people to go for gambling - Cause relationships problem, broken families, prejudice, stereotyping, which might bring to greater social problems in the society - Violence and gangsterism due to loan sharks and illegal borrowers. - More crimes such as robberies, snatch thieves, theft, etc
Economics	- When people easily get money through gambling, public becomes lazy to work hard which leads to all the unfinished development all around the country - The predictability is uncertain, because it depends on the performance of each team is not known. - Generate income for the government through licensing and tax - If the main issue is having economic benefits, we should see if it contributes to the economy continuously or just during the football season. - Why are there no gambling license given for other sports? Why at this point of time the issue is coming up?
Moral	- Is not encouraged by ANY RELIGION at all. - Shows that government is not going on the civilised path of moral and ethics
Political	- Might be a stepping stone or an open doorway to a more demoralising policy in future.

The main point is to think whether the pros outweighs the cons. This also has to be considered in a long-term point of view, where the civilisation of human comes to view, not only economy-wise but morally as well. This issue is raised when the FIFA World Cup is happening, which means this is sort of a 4-year once income. The government should also consider whether this is to be a big contribution, economy-wise, to the country. If it can’t contribute much and is negligible, this licensing should not be given any consideration.

The phrase “if you can’t beat them, join them” does not work in this matter. Before “joining” for real, many factors have to be put up for discussion.

Even though our country has been legalising gambling, liquor drinking, and other morally-low activities, this should be seen as an opportunity for the government to put a stop to more demands to legalise ‘illegal’ matters. There might be a lot of protests due to the fact that there are other legal licenses for activities like this and suggestions to legalise football betting or choose to ban all others. However, if the government is NOT bent and demoralised by the people who demand for more unethical activities to be legalised, it will definitely be a good point to start a journey to becoming a developed country which is clean and free from illegal activities.

Of course, we will not deny the fact that people who want to gamble will continue to gamble whether it is legal or illegal. So legalising football betting will probably allow the gamblers to contribute back to society through licensing and taxes. However, we trust that this will not be a necessary revenue for the country which will certainly generate revenue from far more ethical and productive activities.

Maybe this action of NOT legalising football gambling license will be a doorway or a stepping stone or a foundation for our government to work backwards and undo their actions of legalising immoral activities in our country. To stop this means the government has taken their first step to eradicate immoral activities which has more or less contributed to the social ills in our country. However, it is also a must to enforce the present laws to allow, not only the authority but also the rakyat to work hand in hand with the existing laws and policy to bring our country to a more civilised standard of living. For example, in Britain, there is a British Gambling Commission which might have been a factor that brought down the statistics of gamblers to only 0.6. We have a chance of going towards a more cultured and ethical country, it all depends on who will take the first step, which is always and always the hardest.

In conclusion, WE AT MPMUM STAND STRONG TO PROTEST AGAINST LEGALISING FOOTBALL GAMBLING.