Gambling-related Harm

Craig Whittaker Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

I wonder what the answer is. I fully understand what the hon. Lady is proposing, but look at the hard evidence from Norway. Norway has done exactly what the hon. Lady is proposing, but 66% of all gambling stakes in Norway are done on the black market or dark web. How does the hon. Lady propose that that does not happen in this case?

[Carolyn Harris]

Doing nothing is certainly not the answer. I know little about the Norway study, but just because Norway has not been successful, it does not mean to say that the UK Government would not be successful. We cannot afford to have any more of the issues that we have encountered for the last 17 years. Enough life has been lost, and doing nothing is not an answer.

I would like to pay tribute to Annie Ashton, who bravely started an e-petition when her husband Luke sadly took his own life after being lured back into gambling by relentless operators. I strongly back her calls to end the poisonous inducements that the industry uses to hook people on its addictive products. There is no such thing as a free bet.

It is not just inducements that are a massive problem. Gambling advertising has proliferated in recent years. We are now bombarded with gambling adverts on TV, online, at football matches and on billboards. I know that colleagues are particularly concerned about the impact that that has on children. If we look at recent published data, we can see the scale of the problem: 96% of people aged 11 to 24 have seen gambling marketing messages in the last month and are more likely to bet as a result; 45% of 11 to 17-year-olds and 72% of 18 to 24-year-olds see gambling advertising at least once a week on their social media, with one-third of young people reporting seeing it daily; 41,000 under 16-year-olds—children—are estimated to be followers of gambling-related accounts on social media; and 1,200 hours of gambling ads have been played on the radio during the school run hours over the last year.

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[Craig Whittaker (Calder Valley) (Con)]

Everybody here understands the damage caused by addiction, not just to the individual but to families, marriages and communities. Nobody doubts for a minute the challenges that the Government face in trying to regulate, in this case, the gambling industry to protect the most vulnerable, while at the same allowing the vast majority to enjoy their hobby or, in some cases, profession without it becoming an overburdened, bureaucratic straitjacket or without imposing a nanny-state solution on the majority. I say that because if the industry is restricted too harshly, the evidence shows that it just forces people on to the black market or the dark web, where there are absolutely no checks or balances in place to protect people. No, it is not difficult to access for someone who wants or needs to use it.

The reality is that problem gambling rates in the UK, at 0.3%, are low compared with our neighbours: in Italy, it is 2.4%; in Norway, 1.4%; and in France, 1.3%. Despite what the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) says, a big part of that success is down to what industry in the UK has embraced, with programmes like “BeGambleAware”. That is not just a saying or catchphrase, but something tangible in every regulated high street betting shop with human interaction, as well as their online presence. The large industry players in this country have pledged contributions of over £100 million for research, education and treatment in this area.

[Carolyn Harris]

Will the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that for the money the industry has given, it says where it is spent? It has influence over how that money is spent and therefore it precludes people from accessing services because they feel there is industry interference.

[Craig Whittaker]

I was trying to highlight the fact that the hon. Lady said earlier that the industry was doing nothing, and the reality is that it is not doing nothing. It is actually part of why we have a much lower gambling problem in this country than our neighbours do. The industry is also spending a further £10 million on safer gambling education for all 11 to 19-year-olds throughout the country. As we have seen during the pandemic when we were all working from home, advertising on safer gambling is a much larger proportion of the money spent on gambling adverts.

That does not mean that we do nothing more. Of course there is more to do, and anyone who has experienced living with a problem gambler knows how potentially life-damaging it is for everyone around them. It is therefore right that any review of gambling has the most vulnerable at its heart.

Let us briefly look at what happens when we abandon a balanced, competitive, regulated market, which is the only way to deter the hugely increasing black market. I mentioned Norway earlier, which introduced restrictions on stakes, strict affordability checks, and curbs on advertising. Instead of protecting the most vulnerable, it drove them to the black market, where 66% of all gambling in Norway now takes place. There is no human interaction on that market, no checks on affordability, and no lifelines available, either. So Norway’s 1.4% problem gambling figure is much higher because it does not know where the problem gamblers are.

[Aaron Bell]

On the black market, my hon. Friend rightly draws attention to the lack of protection for problem gamblers, but there is also no protection for people to ensure they get paid if they have a winning bet. They do not have any of the security that we have here in the United Kingdom that ensures people will be treated fairly by the operator, nor all the problem gambling measures that we have.

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We get legal protection in the regulated market that we have here in the UK.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I draw the Chamber’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. There is a further point that has not been mentioned. I represent the Cheltenham racecourse, and 45% of horseracing’s income comes from bookmakers. It is extremely important that we tackle problem gambling. One problem gambler is one too many, but is not that statistic very important when the Government consider how to take a balanced approach? The entire sport of horseracing is very worried indeed about the potential loss of income in what is not a well-funded sport.

[Craig Whittaker]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and we see that in snooker and darts as well, which rely on funding to ensure they remain popular.

I mentioned Norway and I will highlight a similar story in France, where online gambling is illegal and 57% of all gambling is done on the black market. In Bulgaria, it is 47%. In Italy, 23% of all money staked now goes to the black market. Here in the UK, although the figures are low in comparison, we have seen a large rise in online unregulated gambling, from 2.2% to 4.5% over the last 18 months. In unregulated, black market gambling—

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order. Will the hon. Gentleman wind up, please?

[Craig Whittaker]

Of course. The average stakes are much higher, with billions and billions of pounds involved.

Let us be careful what we ask for. Although the scourge of addiction is a problem that we need to address, we have to be very careful that an act of good intention does not make the problem far worse than it currently is. The evidence is there if the Government are keen to look. We must not throw the baby out with the bathwater. The Government need to work closely with the industry on solutions and not destroy good intentions by imposing on the industry rather than working with it.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

I am sorry for the three speakers remaining. We have less than nine minutes left, so that is three minutes each.