Football Association and Bet365 Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Jeremy Wright
Main Page: Jeremy Wright (Conservative - Kenilworth and Southam)Department Debates - View all Jeremy Wright's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Football Association and Bet365
Jeremy Wright Excerpts(4 years, 11 months ago)
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Nigel Adams
It is worth pointing out again that seven gambling companies are involved in this arrangement with IMG. I know that the FA is in constant contact with IMG, and they have been put in no doubt about our views on the current arrangement.
Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)
I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this urgent question, and I thank the Minister for what he has said. He is right to highlight the progress that the FA has made on football and betting, but does he agree that bad decisions such as this one are in danger of making that perception of progress disappear in a puff of smoke? Given that there will be an increase in gambling as a result of this deal—after all, that is why Bet365 has engaged in it—there will also be an increase in problem gambling. That needs to be properly monitored, that monitoring will have a cost and that cost should be paid by Bet365 and the FA. If it can be demonstrated that there has been an increase in problem gambling, that should bring forward the review of the deal.
Nigel Adams
The former Secretary of State makes an incredibly good point. As I said to the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), nothing is off the table in respect of the conversations that we will have with the FA.