It’s surprising the number of parents trekking to newsagencies and other outlets to recharge their kids phones. One lady quipped to me today “at least this way I know where the pocket money is being spent”. We chatted about how the phone companies are making a killing from the text phenomenon when ‘back in our day’ people would wait until they were face to face to talk with each other. This recharge business did not exist ten years ago and now it’s sucking hundreds of millions from family budgets. On the one hand retailers are told to be responsible in promoting gambling to consumers yet there are no guidelines on our pushing of recharge on consumers. The two are similar in my view.