Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 17th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote (CB)]

My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for his helpful and concise introduction of the Bill. Before I make any detailed comments, I should like to set out some of the general principles informing my approach to gambling legislation. While I have no wish to prevent from gambling online anyone who wishes to do so legitimately, I believe in the importance of putting in place proper protections for problem gamblers and the vulnerable. In this regard, I strongly support the commitment to protect,

“children and other vulnerable persons from being harmed or exploited by gambling”,

as set out in Section 1 of the Gambling Act 2005.

The 2010 British Gambling Prevalence Survey shows that the UK problem gambling figure is 0.9%. That may not sound like very much, but it amounts to about 451,000 people in the UK. Problem gambling is a hugely destructive process that destroys lives. In assessing its public policy significance, it is important to remember that since no man or woman is an island, the destructive chaos that impacts those 451,000 people actually impacts a far larger group when we factor in the families and work colleagues of those 451,000 people.

Moreover, in considering the challenge of problem gambling from the perspective of this Bill, we must consider that the figure for people gambling online is much greater. Far from being 0.9% of the whole population, the problem figures for online slot machines are actually more than 9% and, measured on a monthly basis, are 17% of those who gamble. It is vital that we approach the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Bill mindful of this challenge and mindful of the need to ensure that any changes it makes result in greater protection for problem gamblers. I now turn to my detailed consideration of the Bill.

The first major problem with the Bill, as a consumer protection Bill, is that half of it is missing. The whole point of having a regulatory regime is to protect customers, including the vulnerable, and this depends on being able to enforce that regime. In principle, the idea that all online gambling providers that want to access the UK market should require a licence is excellent. If we are to follow through on this protective measure, however, it is imperative that those online gambling providers that do not have a licence are prevented from accessing the UK market.

If noble Lords scrutinise this Bill, however, they will see that this vital enforcement provision is missing. There is an incentive—a carrot—for gambling providers to get a licence, which is the opportunity to advertise, but there is no stick—no means of preventing unlicensed providers from accessing the UK market. Without a credible enforcement mechanism, the chief effect of the Bill is actually further to widen the scope for online gambling operators to advertise. Bereft of this key component, a Bill that is supposed to be about consumer protection looks increasingly like the online gambling liberalisation Bill.

In the other place, the Minister was pressed as to why the Bill is all carrot and no stick. Specifically, she was asked why there are no provisions in the Bill for either IP blocking or financial transaction blocking. The Minister’s response seemed to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding about these mechanisms. In the first instance, she seemed to seek to refute both financial transaction blocking and IP blocking_, through arguments that only really pertained to the latter and which did not provide a reason not to proceed with financial transaction blocking. In the second instance, she seemed to operate on the basis that because neither mechanism is 100% effective they are failures. If we are concerned to protect British consumers from unregulated providers, we should want to avail ourselves of the technology that is available. Even if it was only 50% better, that would be 50% better than doing nothing.

The implication seemed to be that unless blocking technology is 100% successful it is a failure, which is rather like saying that because people wearing seat belts still sadly die in some road traffic accidents, seat belts are ineffective. The truth is that financial transaction blocking has been deemed sufficiently useful to be employed as a tool to protect consumers from unregulated online gambling providers in Belgium, Estonia, France, Hungary, Israel, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway and the USA. If the Government are serious in suggesting that the Bill before us today is about consumer protection, they must introduce a clear enforcement mechanism, such as financial transaction blocking, and demonstrate a real political will to protect British consumers from unlicensed online gambling providers.

The second failure of the Bill pertains to the way in which it effectively liberalises gambling advertising without taking any steps to help the problem gamblers, who will be made even more aware of online gambling. To understand that failure, we must understand a failure of current efforts to help online gamblers today, even before the Bill takes effect. One of the accepted standards for helping problem gamblers is self-exclusion. Indeed, a form of self-exclusion is already part of the UK regulatory regime. Problem gamblers have the option of self-excluding from gambling providers for a fixed period of, say, eight months or longer. The provider is then obliged not to serve them for the duration of the agreed self-exclusion period and to take them off any marketing list they may be on. This tool works in that, as well as having weak days, problem gamblers also have strong days. On a strong day, they will be able to get round the four betting shops in their town and thus deny themselves the option of gambling for, say, eight months, during which time they can get help and seek to put their lives back together.

Currently, however, online problem gamblers are effectively discriminated against because, although they can self-exclude from gambling websites, they still have a difficulty. They could self-exclude from four gambling websites that they can access from home, but they will still be able to access hundreds, if not thousands, of online gambling websites. It is simply physically impossible to self-exclude from all those websites. Unlike the problem gambler who, in a strong period, self-excludes from the four bookies on his high street, the online gambler cannot do that for all websites.

The current failure, however, is massively compounded by the Bill, because it proposes increasing the scope for even more online gambling providers to advertise in the UK without doing anything to address existing discrimination against online problem gamblers. Happily, there is something that can be done to address that problem: the provision of a one-stop shop self-exclusion mechanism. The principle is very simple. Any problem gambler should be able to self-exclude just once by contacting the Gambling Commission, and that should cover all gambling providers with a Gambling Commission licence.

Dr Sally Gainsbury, author of Internet Gambling: Current Research Findings and Implications, published by Springer in the SpringerBriefs behavioural medicine series 2012, states that a significant limitation of self-exclusion is,

“the lack of collaboration between different online gambling sites and venues, so that excluded individuals may find it easy to gamble at another site or venue”.

She argues that the technology is available and points to its feasibility, particularly in the UK due to the current existing licensing conditions and code of practice upheld by the UK Gambling Commission. She states that,

“it is a UK licensing condition to maintain a register of self-excluders, including appropriate record of identification details and payment cards. Although care must be taken to protect customers identity, data encryption programs can be used to protect sensitive details and it may be possible to encourage operators to share details to enable wider self-exclusion programs”.

Gainsbury goes on to mention a program called VeriPlay.com, developed by Bet Buddy, which allows the secure exchange of anonymous data. It allows operators to check whether a player is on a centralised list of players who have self-excluded.

Research presented to the Canadian-based Responsible Gambling Council in 2011 by the British-based GamCare and the University of Salford, along with Bet Buddy, backs the proposa1. A one-stop shop amendment was put down in the other place in Committee and at Third Reading. Although both were defeated, the majority was not great and the Government did not seem to have any compelling arguments with which to oppose. The Third Reading vote was relatively close, at 223 to 283.

The idea can be implemented; it takes only political will. The basic question is: do we care about problem gamblers? Do we care about protecting the vulnerable? The Government could have squarely addressed concerns that this Bill is really all about tax, but they have not done so.

In the absence of a proper enforcement mechanism and a one-stop shop self-exclusion mechanism, this looks like the “online gambling advertising liberalisation Bill”, with no regard for online problem gamblers. Is it not a shame that that is how one can look at it? I strongly urge the Government to amend the Bill and to make provision both for financial transaction blocking and a one-stop shop for self-exclusion.