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LONDON - Calling television quiz shows in the hope of winning big money cost Julie Ellison nearly £4000 ($11,156) in phone bills over 18 months and she never won a penny, but still she keeps on trying.
Thousands of people in Britain take part in interactive quiz programmes,
but Ellison, who is housebound after being injured in a fire two years ago, is one of an unknown number who say they have become addicted to them.
"I want to win," said the 38-year-old, from Manchester.
She started calling because she needed to buy a mobility scooter.
"With what I spent [on calls] I could have bought one anyway," she said.
Britain's television industry is at the centre of a storm amid allegations of rigged or overpriced phone-ins for talent contests and quizzes, prompting broadcasters to suspend some shows as they review the system.
The shows - including contests offering viewers the chance to vote for their favourite performers - have grown rapidly in Britain and beyond. Companies behind them make money by charging a premium rate on the cost of calls.
Premium phone rate services watchdog ICSTIS says the services in Britain generated a total of about £1.2 billion in revenue last year.
While Britons are apathetic when it comes to choosing political leaders, the hope of picking their favourite celebrity or winning a prize has enticed them to call up in droves.
This has raised fears that quiz games, in particular, are a potentially addictive form of gambling.
"Interactive television quiz shows share many of the dimensions of interactive television gambling, and also raise the same types of concern when talking about vulnerable and susceptible populations," Mark Griffiths, a professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, wrote in a paper entitled Interactive television quizzes as gambling: A cause for concern?
Symptoms of addiction include the TV quiz becoming the most important thing in a person's life, not playing brings on withdrawal symptoms, and addicts feel the need to play the game ever more frequently, he said.
GamCare, a charity for gambling addicts, says it has not received a significant number of complaints from individuals hooked on interactive TV quiz shows, but adds viewers possibly do not know where to turn.
But Promis, a firm that offers counselling to beat addictions, is convinced TV call shows - with their smiling presenters, seemingly easy questions and prizes of up to £100,000 - are a form of addictive gambling.
It says they have infiltrated a new section of the population, such as the elderly and some women, who would never think to enter a casino or gamble online.
Ellison, for her part, said she welcomed the push to tighten up quiz game practices, recalling how she used to spend up to £150 a night on the shows before her landline and then mobile phone were disconnected. She now has a pay-as-you-go mobile, and spends up to £60 a week.
- REUTERS
