Online Gambling Protection

Iain Duncan Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Richard Graham]

My hon. Friend is right. I welcome the report that the Committee is working on; it may show higher correlations between addiction to gaming and gambling than we previously knew, which would be extremely valuable.

What we are hearing is that Josh’s case is not a one-off; hundreds commit suicide every year as a result of gambling. We do not know exactly how many—it is somewhere between 250 and 650 a year. That is a margin of error about life and death that would be completely unacceptable in any other sector. The implication that we just do not know whether 400 people committed suicide as a result of a gambling addiction or for other reasons is truly shocking. Were it, say, the construction sector or the armed forces, there would be a public inquiry about dereliction of duty.

The first thing that we have to do is radically to improve our knowledge of the facts, and to improve the research and data that is collected. The Gambling Commission, the regulator, is working on a series of partnerships with the police, the NHS, GPs and so on to improve the situation. I am sure that the Minister, who I know is very concerned about this matter, will show support for all that work. However, serious money is needed to do it effectively, and the current £8 million a year or so given by the industry as a percentage of turnover is, given their £14 billion of profit, frankly peanuts. No wonder we know so little.

[Mr Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Two or three really important facts are only just becoming known. One is that the big gambling companies give inducements to those who have the highest level of losses because those people make them their profits. I understand that they also do their level best eventually to get rid of those who are not in debt, and do not lose so much. They do not want them on their sites; they want those who lose, whom they can condition to it.

On the all-party parliamentary group, we have also discovered that gagging orders are being put in place to stop employees talking about what is going on. Companies are not supposed to give inducements to people who are already addicted, but it happens. Does my hon. Friend accept that that is a real problem?

[Richard Graham]

My right hon. Friend, who has done a lot of work on this subject, not least through the Centre for Social Justice, is right to highlight some shocking practices that have undoubtedly happened. In my own constituency, a friend of mine who is a taxi driver ran up £650,000 of debt with one gambling firm. I hope that all taxi drivers in Gloucester are well remunerated, but frankly none of them can afford such vast amounts of money. Part of it came from inducements—indeed, there was a lot of wining and dining of such a profitable customer. That is one of the intrinsic slight conflicts of interest within the sector. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for mentioning that.

My first call today is for a serious contribution by the industry to fund vastly improved and independent research. Campaigners have been calling for it, the gambling review supported it and the industry expects it; William Hill has even called for it. I therefore ask the Minister when we can expect to see legislation in the shape of a statutory instrument to implement a levy of 1% of company gross profits as soon as possible.

It is not just research that will help us to prevent the rapid growth of what is fast becoming a social epidemic. As my hon. Friends have said, action is needed to protect the young. That means action on the astonishing amount of online gambling advertising on sports programmes. It is rampant. Fathers watching football or rugby at home and having a flutter with an accumulator on Raheem Sterling scoring a hat trick for Man City are unwittingly starting their children off with the idea that gambling is normal. We need to keep gambling adverts off TV sports programmes.