We’re Martin and Adrian. Hi! Almost six tears ago we started a community interest company called The Machine Zone which has worked with many others to raise awareness of gambling harms, challenge stigma and campaign for reforms to reduce gambling harms.

With personal lived experience of the devastation that can be caused by compulsive attachment to behaviours and substances, we have met many indiviuals who are doing similar work driven by lived experience. We also continue to work with some great third sector organisations in Glasgow and Scotland which work in such sectors as health and social care, the justice system, suicide prevention and debt advice.

In the next stage of our work we want to invite community centres in Glasgow to contact us with a view to raising awareness of gambling harms among citizens. You’ll see on this website just how widespread those harms are but they are often hidden from awareness. You may be suffering yourself from your own or somebody else’s gambling and think it’s ‘just you’, probably feel a bit too ashamed to seek help. But you’re far from alone. Children, family members, friends, workmates may all be suffering silently. As well as some leaflets and posters we have a very powerful film that was made in Glasgow, One Last Spin, and we’d love to screen it in your community. So do get in touch!

We also run a website called Gambling Watch Scotland. 

Outside of London, Glasgow has more bookmakers than anywhere in the UK.  Lottery tickets and scratchcards are popular too with the 66% of Scots who gamble, Increasingly, people are drawn to online gambling, especially to vitual slots and sports betting. Those of us, the majority, who own a smartphone have a potential ‘casino in the pocket’.  Even if you don’t gamble you’re probably aware of how much we are attracted to our digital devices, and how sometimes we may find ourselves drawn in to spend hours connected to them. Our website The Machine Zone concentrates on digital gambling while also considering the ways in which every aspect of our lives is affected by digital devices.