It was difficult not to laugh at reports about deputies and officials discussing how they could stop recipients of the Guaranteed Minimum Income (GMI) from going to casinos! According to the head of the Gaming and Casino Supervision Commission, over the last three years, a trend of increased gambling was identified around the middle of the month, which was the time GMI was paid out.

Of course, this was just speculation because there is no way of knowing whether the spike in casino gambling at the middle of the month was thanks to GMI recipients. The Commission, which appears to labour under the illusion that it has a duty to stop GMI beneficiaries gambling, contacted the Welfare Benefits Administration Service to find out whether it had any records of such beneficiaries having casino membership cards. The problem was that casino membership cards were not mandatory (they would become mandatory next year) so GMI recipients could not be traced.

It would be interesting to know if there is any legislation that prevents GMI recipients from gambling in a casino. If there is not, why were deputies and state appointees discussing ways of banning welfare beneficiaries from visiting the casino? Is it not a matter of individual liberty how a person spends their money, even if it comes from the state? Why is the gaming and casino supervision commission meddling in the affairs of individuals and looking for ways to prevent them going to the casino.

The truth is that people on guaranteed minimum income do not have to go to the casino to gamble their money. There is a betting shop in every neighbourhood at which they can gamble away their state money. Does the state plan to stop them playing Kino or betting on horses and football matches? Then there is online betting which is the preferred choice of 80 per cent of gamblers according to the National Betting Authority (NBA), which operates a ‘self-exclusion platform.’ But a person registers on this platform voluntarily, although, an NBA official told the House that if there was legislation the authority could place GMI recipients on this platform.

That the authorities and politicians might even be considering this legalised violation of personal liberty is astonishing, even if it is supposedly based on good intentions. This would set a bad precedent opening the way form more ‘well-intentioned’ interference by the state in private lives. The next step might be to stop GMI recipients from buying cigarettes and alcohol because they would be using the taxpayer’s money for items that are harmful to their health. The state has no right to decide how people spend their money even if these people are impoverished recipients of gmi.