Young People: Gambling Harm

Baroness Anelay of St Johns Excerpts

Thursday 23rd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anelay of St Johns (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on securing this short debate and on his long-standing work on preventing gambling harms. Like him, I am very pleased to see the Minister continuing in her role at DCMS.

I will focus on the international implications of gambling harms experienced by young sports players. I am a member of our International Agreements Committee and we are currently scrutinising the impact of the Government’s proposal to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Manipulation of Sports Competitions, known as the Macolin convention. It is the first and only international treaty on the manipulation of sports competitions.

I am grateful to all those who have given evidence to our committee. We have learned a great deal about how young sportspeople can fall into the traps set by those who organise international illegal operations and bribe them. Young people who are just starting out on their careers may be easy targets. We heard compelling evidence from ex-footballer Moses Swaibu about his experience of match fixing and the broader systems behind it, and about how easy it is to get sucked into the illegal gambling world, whether you are playing in league or non-league matches.

His entry into professional sports started when he was 16 and playing for his Croydon state school. He secured a one-year professional contract with Crystal Palace FC and entered an environment of mentors, structures, big brothers and discipline—a new world for him. When he moved to Lincoln City aged 19, a teammate introduced him to the world of match fixing for the first time. It was a phrase he had never even heard of. He knew that it was morally wrong; he just wanted to play football. However, he did not feel that he had the power or confidence to go to Chris Sutton, his first team manager, and say, “The teammate who introduced me to match fixing is the captain”.

Fast forward to 2015, and Moses was sentenced to 16 months in prison for conspiracy to commit bribery following his role in a 2013 match-fixing scandal during his time at Bromley FC. The prosecution said that two Singaporean businessmen were the central figures in the conspiracy. Since his release from prison, Mr Swaibu has devoted his career to combating match fixing. He has become one of the UK’s most active voices in sports integrity education and reform, with a particular focus on educating young footballers who might well fall into the same traps as he did.

Mr Swaibu told our committee that

“if you have a young Moses Swaibu at 18, look at his background, his family, and his siblings: what were the influences around him that shaped this opportunity for crime and corruption?”

We were also given evidence by Dr Madalina Diaconu. She told us that:

“In the past 15, maybe 16 years, we have seen a tremendous increase in the infiltration of organised crime into match-fixing”


of a wide variety of sports, including e-sports. She went on:

“This is where the Macolin convention comes in, because no single sports organisation or sports betting organisation can fight international organised crime syndicates. That is a job for law enforcement and international co-operation in this field, which is precisely what the Macolin convention does”.


The UK signed the convention in 2018, but the Government have only very recently brought it forward for ratification. Can the Minister explain why there has been a delay in seeking to ratify it? I understand that there may be good reasons for this, but what are they?