Gaming Machine (Circumstances of Use) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Baroness Golding Excerpts

Monday 23rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

This evening’s little operation here will fortunately end shortly. It is not very impressive, but everyone should read the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, and they will learn the facts.

[Baroness Golding (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey. He said what many of us have considered saying in the past, but he has done it far more effectively. The number of people who enjoy playing these machines is considerable, and they do so sensibly.

I have friends who travel around the world and playing these machines is their pleasure. They start in the evening with a certain amount of money and they play and play until they have lost it. Sometimes it takes them all night and they are there until five o’clock in the morning but that is their pleasure and why should we stop them doing it? Some of my friends won 2,000 Australian dollars playing in Australia. They decided to leave the money there and go out to try to get rid of it by playing in the same way as they did before. It is their enjoyment and their holiday. The prospect of the poorest people in our communities putting £100 into a machine every 20 seconds is ludicrous. It is beyond belief that they would sit there doing that, losing money. That is absolutely nonsense.

If you are a problem gambler, you are a problem gambler. You will gamble wherever you can—not necessarily on machines, but up in the bedroom, playing online. We cannot stop people who want to gamble from gambling. If they enjoy it, why should we be stopping them?

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I was not going to say anything but I have been provoked into it by my noble friends behind me. I never thought that I would find myself in such disagreement with them and I regret that they have taken that position.

Of course there are problem gamblers, and of course it is hard for them. We have heard of people who have spent all their money and got into debt simply by gambling away all that they have. Surely there is a responsibility on the Government to at least encourage people who are inclined that way to bet moderately, and not give them the facilities to bet large amounts ever so quickly.

I am not against gambling as such. I remind my noble friend Lord Donoughue of the day that he and I went to a race meeting at Listowel Races in Ireland. We had a great time.