Gambling-related Harm
Debate between Aaron Bell and Christina Rees(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Aaron Bell
I am glad to hear that. The fact that she has paid her tax and has not sought to keep that money in the company or do anything else with it is admirable.
Bet365 pays a huge amount of tax and is a British company with huge export success. A lot of its revenue comes from abroad, and any bet taken from abroad improves our balance of payments as an export success. Denise Coates has donated a nine-figure sum to the Denise Coates Foundation, which funds charities locally, nationally and internationally. Bet365 also owns Stoke City football club, so it is rooted in that community.
The hon. Member for Swansea East rightly raised a number of issues, but Bet365 has already gone above and beyond regulatory and industry guidance, by setting deposit limits, picking up on red flags, and having a huge team for responsible gambling proactively contacting people believed to be at risk. The hon. Lady said she wanted a net deposit limit of £100 a month, but I hope she will understand my genuine concern that the process of asking people for data, such as mortgage and bank statements or pay slips, is very intrusive.
In the experience of Bet365 and other firms that I have spoken to, people do not want to provide that information and at the point at which they are asked for it, they stop betting with that firm. We do not know where they then go. Do they go to another firm, elsewhere or stop gambling all together? We do not have enough information, but lessons from the industry tell us that asking people for pay slips and mortgage and bank statements stops them engaging with the firm that already knows their behaviour best. I am not against deposit limits, and neither is Bet365, but we have to get the level right and have lower levels for young people, and so on. Equally, Bet365 has set slot stake limits lower than previously and is prepared to look at feedback.
Change is necessary. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Swansea East for her campaign. I hope that in the course of the review the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport can learn from firms that are at the forefront of the sector, such as Bet365, which is a major local employer that is setting standards for responsible gambling within the sector that I believe we can learn from.
Christina Rees (in the Chair)
Can Members reduce the length of their comments to three and a half to four minutes? I call Jim Shannon.