Gambling: Regulatory Reform

Jim Dickson Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd December 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Cooper]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. Gambling has become ubiquitous in our society. It is endemic. We watch the television; we have online roulette in our pockets—it is everywhere. We must also be mindful of the black market as well as the legal gambling companies, and go after both with ferocity to make sure the harms are reduced.

Having established the need to recognise the public health costs of the most dangerous gambling products, we should review the taxation of other harmful forms of gambling, particularly the most dangerous category—the B3 machines in adult gaming centres. It is right that the duty paid by those machines is set at a higher rate. The Gambling Commission, which we have already heard about, must do more to ensure that licence conditions are followed by adult gaming centres. There are widespread reports of breaches of the rules, notably the 80/20 rule relating to the most harmful category of machine, and games that facilitate much higher stakes than is permitted in the licensing codes.

Let us be clear; gambling is highly profitable, and that profit cannot be separated from the harm inflicted. We have already heard this, but it is worth stating again: 60% of the industry’s profits come from 5% of customers who are either addicted or at risk.

[Jim Dickson (Dartford) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and for the excellent and knowledgeable speech she is making. One other important piece of context in all this is the men’s health strategy, which I know was widely welcomed across the House and was published two weeks ago, and which identified gambling harms as a key element that it needed to tackle. Most of us have welcomed the introduction of the remote gambling tax; that fits very well within the men’s health strategy, because it seeks to disincentivise the most harmful forms of gambling. Does she agree that, while the tax was very welcome, we need to make sure that the money coming in via the levy is as well spent as possible to tackle the harms caused by gambling?

[Dr Cooper]

Those are points very well made. Tackling gambling harms should be at the top of our public health priorities—I make a declaration of interest: I am a public health consultant—to ensure our country thrives economically as well as in health terms. The two are intertwined; we cannot separate them.

Gambling profit cannot be separated from the harm inflicted. In online gambling, 86% of profits come from the top 5% of customers. We have already heard from the hon. Member for Witney and others about the ubiquity of advertising. A recent report showed that the industry spends £2 billion a year on advertising—an astronomical sum that is fuelling a public health crisis in this country. Targeted digital marketing means that someone with a gambling problem is nine times more likely to be offered a so-called free bet, according to the Gambling Commission.

We need regulatory and legislative tools to tackle industry marketing practices, and we must make sure that children are protected from the proliferation of gambling ads, sponsorship and influencer marketing. As someone who has teenage children, I am only too aware that responsible mobile phone usage only goes so far; we must ensure that our children are protected from this insidious way of introducing people to gambling far too early and far too often. Gambling Commission statistics show that 1.2% of children experience problem gambling, and 3.4% of 11 to 17-year-olds are already being harmed by their gambling. That is astonishing and outrageous. Children should receive independent education about the dangers of gambling, and we must stop incentivising them to gamble through widespread advertising, both online and offline.

We cannot treat gambling as a harmless leisure activity when 14% of British adults are at risk of gambling harm and gambling-related suicides occur in their hundreds every year. Gambling is a matter of public health. I appreciate that it is overseen by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, but I think it should be overseen by the Department of Health and Social Care, with a legislative framework that is fit for purpose for the digital age.

We have heard about the last Government’s White Paper, which does not give us the right road map to address this public health crisis; it does not address the fact that councils have no adequate powers to prevent adult gaming centres from proliferating locally, sucking the life out of our more deprived communities, and it fails to address advertising, sponsorship and the modern marketing of gambling. We must look to review the White Paper and set a timeline for a new gambling Act.