Gambling-Related Harm

Dan Poulter Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ronnie Cowan]

I wholeheartedly agree. I am not going to war with the gambling industry here, but we have to look at the figures, and the money that companies have to spend in order to promote gambling far outweighs anything that we have got at local council level to counteract that and the damage that has been done.

In addition, because the levy is voluntary, the amount raised can vary from year to year, and therefore budgeting for long-term treatment is extremely precarious. I ask the Minister to review how gambling-related harm reduction is funded and to investigate more effective methods.

Let me be clear: I am not asking for financial recompense from gambling companies just to improve their public image. A sponsorship deal here and a charitable donation there are no more than fig leaves to hide the companies’ own embarrassment—and they should be embarrassed. How can a family be recompensed for the loss of their son, or a child who has lost their father? I am not asking for token gestures; I am asking gambling companies to stop doing the damage in the first place. Rather than merely asking punters to “gamble responsibly”, they should run their organisations responsibly. If the Gambling Commission cannot act, and if self-regulation is not adequate, the UK Government should step in and legislate to ensure responsible working practices are in place. Will the Minister review the role of the Gambling Commission and its funding model?

While we talk about responsible working practices, companies are gathering data pertaining to the habits of online gamblers. Astonishingly, they are closing down the accounts of people who are successful and winning—even those winning small amounts—while targeting and encouraging vulnerable gamblers who are losing to continue gambling. This callous disregard for the welfare of their customers is tantamount to gross negligence.

Another outcome of the increased use of technology is that the division between gambling and gaming has been blurred by the introduction of “loot boxes”. That did not happen by accident: adults designed and wrote the software; adults considered the returns; and adults are grooming children to be the next generation of gamblers.

[Dr Dan Poulter (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way and congratulate him on securing the debate. He is making many points that I agree with entirely. On the point about how we can better control some of the excesses of the gambling industry, does he agree that we need to consider how the advertising strategies of the gambling industry are conducted, and in particular how they use social media and advanced techniques to target people who are already known to gamble, encouraging them to gamble further?

[Ronnie Cowan]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct. We could have an entire debate about advertising in the gambling industry. It is such a deep concept, because of the methodology that can now be used by gambling and media companies to get access to people and their information and then specifically target them in a way in which they know will manipulate that information. It is a whole big data, fake news almost, subject.

We know that loot boxes can be closed down, because they have been in Belgium—they have even managed to do it in the Isle of Man—so will the Minister take action to ban loot boxes from the United Kingdom?

Where to start when it comes to advertising? Live televised sports events are swamped with betting adverts and inducements to bet. The impression is given that a sporting event is not sufficient entertainment in its own right unless we take a punt on the outcome. Gambling has become normalised through such extensive advertising and in popular discourse. Football punditry now increasingly refers to bookies’ odds, and many more sports teams are sponsored by operators. As the latter qualifies as sponsorship rather than advertising, the same regulations do not apply. With punters being encouraged at every turn, the ease with which gamblers can sign up to an online operator is of great concern. Punters can gamble 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all year. There is now no cooling-off period.

The style of games is carefully crafted to draw users in, with frequent offers of free spins and other techniques that are used to start habitual gambling behaviour. Money is readily available through credit cards, PayPal accounts and phone accounts—they are all accepted as means of payment.

Finally, to be perfectly blunt, the gambling companies have stacked the odds against the punters and the damage that is being done needs to be redressed. However, it can be done only if the money is raised and put in the right hands to support gambling addiction, advertising is curtailed and the behaviour of bookmakers, particularly regarding online betting, is monitored and adjusted accordingly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Hugo Swire (East Devon) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Inverclyde (Ronnie Cowan) for securing the debate. I would like to feel that I played some part in making his speech happen because, had I not lost Greenock and Inverclyde, which I fought valiantly in the 1997 general election, he might not be here with us—that election in itself was something of a gamble.

I was just reviewing some of the things I spoke about when I was shadow Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport between 2005 and 2007, opposite the late Dame Tessa Jowell, whose memorial service I was pleased to attend. Tessa, I think, was slightly conflicted during that time. The Labour party of the day was absolutely obsessed with the idea, which it had imported from America, of inner-city super-casinos as the panacea to all the problems of inner-city regeneration. We debated that back and forth across the House and many people on both sides thought it a terrible idea. In the end, it did not really happen. At the same time, however, the issue of online gambling was beginning to emerge. Although Tessa admitted in 2006 that she had presided over an explosion of online gambling, she was concerned about the regulatory side, particularly about trying to regulate offshore gambling, which remains a problem. The Government of the day, and Governments since, have always been one step behind.

It is the Opposition’s job to be critical of the Government, and I remember being critical of the international summit on remote gambling that Tessa put on in October 2006, rather appositely at Royal Ascot—the home of racing. The conference prioritised crime, competition and safeguards for children and vulnerable people, but had little to say about how to prevent, given the growing online arena, gambling-related harm or its associated social costs.

Reviewing what I said, the questions I laid down and the debates we had in that period, it is salutary to think that we have not moved on that much. The latest Gambling Commission figures show that 48% of adults participate in some form of gambling, and for online gambling the figure is 18%. I should think, but I do not know and the Minister will be able to correct me, that that figure is more likely to increase than decrease.

Problem gambling is defined as behaviour related to gambling that causes harm to the gambler and those around them. The figures look small at face value: problem gambling is confined to 0.5% of adults, with 1.1% at moderate risk and 3.3% at low risk, according to one of the most robust estimates, the problem gambling severity index. Problem gambling is thus defined in that rather tight category, but it is more difficult to estimate gambling-related harms to society, because the term itself does not have a strict definition. The Responsible Gambling Strategy Board, the body that provides independent advice to the Gambling Commission, lists among the social costs of gambling-related harm loss of employment, health-related problems, homelessness and suicide.

[Dr Poulter]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good point. Although according to the headline figure only a small percentage of the general population appears to be affected by problem gambling, the reality is that the harms that manifest in that group are widespread and cause both considerable economic damage to those people and their families and damage to wider society. As my right hon. Friend rightly said, to look at just those headline figures would be misleading.

[Sir Hugo Swire]

I hope that we will shortly hear from my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith), who has done much work in this area, not least on fixed odds betting terminals, which are described as the “crack cocaine of gambling”. He will be better able than me to inform the debate.

I do not want to take up too much more time, other than to say that we have been debating the matter for many, many years and I do not believe that we have it right. It remains a huge problem that is difficult, but not impossible, to regulate. We want to hear from the Government how much more robust they can be.

I have just five quick points to put to the Minister. Will the Government treat gambling as a public health issue, as we do mental health? Will the Minister consider introducing tougher verification checks, which could ensure that young gamblers were not drawn online? Has she considered limiting gambling adverts during sports match breaks to one per break per company? We heard from the hon. Member for Inverclyde how online gambling organisations and organised sport are almost one and the same now. Will the Minister agree to conduct a full review of the social costs of gambling? For example, the Government have never estimated the cost to the NHS of gambling-related harm. Will the Minister ensure that gambling-related harm is included when health education is made compulsory in all state-funded schools, as part of teaching about mental wellbeing? My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) has already mentioned schools.

Almost daily, we hear and read about problems to do with mental health, and I am glad that we now talk about mental health in a way that we perhaps never have—it is one of society’s hidden problems. However, I suggest that mental health issues in some cases—not all—can be, and are identified as being, exacerbated by dependency on drugs, alcohol and, yes, gambling. Gambling can be a hidden form of dependency, because if you are online you can do it on your computer in your own room. It is not the gambling that people think about of 50 or 60 years ago, which was a social occasion, be it at the bingo or in a casino; it is a hidden form of playing with money and, often, with people’s lives.