Draft Gambling Act 2005 (Operating Licence Conditions) (Amendment) Regulations 2018

Angela Eagle Excerpts

Tuesday 20th March 2018 General Committees

[Ms Angela Eagle (Wallasey) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Davies, to see you siting in the Chair for today’s proceedings. I welcome this statutory instrument, which does an important job. I am interested to see whether the Minister will tell us a bit more about the customer confusion caused by the marketing of foreign lotteries and bets on the outcome of foreign lotteries. What she has said today sets an interesting and good precedent regarding customer confusion about advertising leading to more regulation of lotteries and much wider measures. Would she say more about that?

There are some anecdotes in the impact assessment about people who confuse betting on the outcome of the EuroMillions lottery with the buying of tickets for our lottery. Such marketing—along with the operation of websites that send people to dubious places when they search, tempting them to buy dubious things that are not what they think they are—happens far more widely than lotteries, although in gambling it is clearly a difficult issue and could lead to problem gambling. Would the Minister say more about the good precedent set by her and her Department in taking this draconian but welcome legislative action, tipped off by evidence that customers are confused?

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[Tracey Crouch]

We face many challenges at the moment regarding the national lottery and the return to good causes. We are seeing some stabilisation of lottery sales, which is a good sign, and we have regular discussions via the Gambling Commission with Camelot about lottery sales. Today, we are specifically looking at EuroMillions, which gives 27% of its retail sales and 33% of its online sales to good causes. We want to ensure that we eradicate any threat to that by looking at closing the loophole that allows people to bet on EuroMillions. That is something that has been discussed over time, and we feel strongly that it is a way of supporting the good causes that people who play the national lottery believe they are getting involved in.

[Ms Eagle]

I am interested in the level of confusion caused by advertising the presence of gambling websites—the way in which one goes through a search engine on to a gambling website, which gives confusing information— and what assessment the Government have made of the standards that are acceptable on those websites and those that are unacceptable because they are actively misleading. Can the Minister give us more information about the way in which she and her Department have reached decisions on that? We support the decisions, but there is a much bigger issue about confusion and sales issues on all kinds of websites, for which she may be setting a good precedent. That is what I am interested in.

[Tracey Crouch]

I refer the hon. Lady to the gambling review, in which we look at issues around advertising and gambling, full stop. That includes advertising online and we will continue to work on that. There is a whole system of algorithms that are in place, which we are trying to unpick to see whether we can seek to develop a much more responsible way of advertising gambling products in response to particular search items.

As I said, we are aware that if people search for EuroMillions, the first thing that comes up is not necessarily the national lottery site but gambling sites. That is one of the things we are trying to unpick, but on a much wider scale, not just related to this issue. We have to ensure that customers have a choice. We must recognise that there are legitimate betting operations and practices out there, but we want to ensure that we have the right choices for the consumer.

[Ms Eagle]

Is the Minister saying that the Government might be mandating changes to algorithms so that there is a proper choice when one uses a search engine?

[Tracey Crouch]

We are reviewing all of this as part of the gambling review and the outcome of the review will be published soon, in the spring, although the hon. Lady knows as well as I do that in Government parlance that can vary.

[Ms Eagle]

“Soon” could be winter.

[Tracey Crouch]

It is the first day of spring today. I urge the hon. Lady to engage with the outcomes of the gambling review, which looks at the much wider issue of advertising in gambling: not just in broadcast, but how we can reduce customer confusion and protect vulnerable people from harm online.

To conclude, in introducing regulations imposing a new licence condition, we are doing no more than extending the existing protection against betting on the national lottery and taking action to remove consumer confusion relating to bets on EuroMillions games. I further commend these regulations to the Committee.

Question put and agreed to.