Gambling-related Harm

Jonathan Gullis Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[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.

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

Does the hon. Lady welcome the whistle-to-whistle ban on advertisements for gambling, which has seen a 97% reduction in the amount of adverts that children see? Would she support what Bet365, a company in Stoke-on-Trent, is supporting, which is that only branding should be advertised, mainly on the pitch side, not any actual odds or free bets that, I agree with her, can be too inducing and, therefore dangerous?

[Carolyn Harris]

The whistle-to-whistle ban is not worth the paper it was written on. As for supporting anything Bet365 has done, I am sorry, I could not possibly do that. My experience of it does not allow me to do that.

That is a fraction of the alarming statistics that come across my desk each day. We know from research by Ipsos MORI and the University of Stirling that regular exposure to gambling promotions can change perceptions and associations with gambling over time and impact the likelihood that young people will gamble in the future. That advertising is a catalyst to risk and problem gambling in secondary school-aged children as a result, according to the Journal of Gambling Studies.

How can we let gambling companies spend more than £1.5 billion a year on advertising to the extent that in one single televised football match over 700 gambling logos were visible throughout the game? That is insane.

[Carolyn Harris]

The right hon. Gentleman will know my answer. I was surprised when I saw the comment from the industry that advertising did not affect people’s behaviour. I thought if that was the case spending £1 would be ridiculous, but to spend £1.5 billion beggars belief.

[Jonathan Gullis]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Carolyn Harris]

I am going to make progress. Economic research has already proven that a ban on gambling advertising in sport would be unlikely to significantly harm sports leagues and teams. The non-gambling sponsors exist and are ready to fill any gap created. With our proposed carve-outs for sectors such as horse racing, we can ensure protection on all sides.

Next is the need for a statutory levy. Chronic underinvestment in the gambling treatment system has led to a scenario in which treatment is unregulated, unaccountable and fails to use the evidence base in the treatment strategies. Between 2% and 3% of people with gambling problems enter the treatment system and nearly all of them enter it through self-referral. A 1% smart levy on industry revenue would provide £130 million, which would be an increase of over £100 million on what we currently receive. That would significantly reduce the UK’s disparity with other nations that spend far more per gambler on treatment than the UK does, increasing funds for improved and—most importantly—industry-free education. That would put the UK at the forefront of research on an issue that affects millions of people across the world, would improve our understanding of how gambling is developing in this country and would inform future regulation.

There should be stake limits for online gambling, to give parity with land-based venues, including a maximum £2 stake on harmful slot content. Given the rapidly changing nature of both land-based gambling and online gambling, it is essential that limits on stakes and prizes, and potentially other factors, are renewed on a triannual basis.

A gambling ombudsman must be set up to ensure fair representation for those who experience problems with operators. Although the Gambling Commission receives complaints as the basis for possible enforcement action, it does not act on behalf of customers in pursuit of redress. That has allowed operators to withhold winnings unfairly and to use obscure terms and conditions to require customers to wager their deposit dozens of times before they are allowed to withdraw their money.

I know that the Gambling Commission has already introduced very welcome identity and age verification requirements, banned the use of credit cards, acted in relation to speed of play and length of time spent on a game, taken measures to require customers to have information on their winnings and their losses, and required all operators to sign up to GAMSTOP. However, there is far, far more to be done.

It is not just my colleagues on the all-party parliamentary group on gambling-related harm or the Peers for Gambling Reform group who support these measures. Recent polling commissioned by YouGov confirms that the British public are also on our side. Of those surveyed, 78% believe that gambling advertising should be completely banned on all platforms before the watershed and 67% also think that sports clubs should no longer have gambling sponsors on their kits or around their stadiums. In addition, 79% of those surveyed believe that under-18s should not be exposed to gambling advertisements in any form and 72% agree with me that affordability checks should be in place to help to prevent people from losing more money than they can afford to lose. Also, 69% of those surveyed think that online slots should have a maximum stake of £2. Finally, 76% of those surveyed think that the gambling industry should not get to choose where funding for treatment for gambling addiction and research goes. For me, that is a bit of a no-brainer, because doing otherwise is letting the gambling industry mark its own homework; the gambling industry gives the money, so it gets to say where it is spent. It is the people who are damaged the most who lose out; this industry only cares about its profits.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Rees. I congratulate the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) on securing this debate. Ultimately, what she said is important. No one here is in denial of the fact that reform needs to happen or that we need to go further.

In Stoke-on-Trent we have Bet365, which is acting impressively to make sure that we see improvements in what they are doing, such as the age verification policy, a deposit limit, advice and the ability to set. If someone wants to change their deposit limit, it takes 24 hours and a cooling-off period before they can do so. Behaviour algorithms monitor that behaviour, which means that someone could be picked up by the early risk detection system, which leads to safer gambling messages. There are on-site messages signposting tools, sharing with the customer information on their behaviour, mandatory problem gambling self-assessment, phone calls with customers, affordability assessments being trialled at the moment, and tailored net deposit limits. Those things are in place. The gambling industry is working hard to improve and to find solutions. Although reform is needed, it must be done sensibly.

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

I must say, I am pleased that people have come here to talk on behalf of the gambling industry. Too often, we talk in a silo and do not hear what other people have to say. I am glad they have come here, spoken out, expressed themselves so eloquently and read their Bet365 briefing so beautifully.

[Jonathan Gullis]

That’s not true.

[Ronnie Cowan]

It absolutely is true. I was sat here beside you and watched you read it.

[Jonathan Gullis]

The hon. Gentleman refers to a briefing that I was reading. I was, indeed, reading a briefing that was presented to the Minister when he visited to explain what the industry was doing, which is forming part of the gambling review. I do not see why it is bad to get a briefing from companies sharing what they are doing. What the hon. Gentleman said is ludicrous.

[Ronnie Cowan]

As I said, a briefing from Bet365—that is exactly what it was.

[Jonathan Gullis]

For the Minister.

[Ronnie Cowan]

It does not matter who it was written for; it is a briefing from Bet365.

[Jonathan Gullis]

You have never had a briefing from anyone else.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

Order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

It is really good to see you in the Chair, Ms Rees. May I start by paying tribute to my hon Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) for securing this debate and, more importantly, for her work over the years. She has been a brilliant campaigner on this issue and set out the problems very clearly in her speech, as did my hon. Friends the Members for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Gerald Jones) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell), who gave powerful speeches. I thank everyone who has contributed to the debate, particularly the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). It is not often that I agree with every word he says, but I did today.

We have had a variety of contributions, but there is something that shines through—namely, the wide recognition and consensus that reform is needed. As we know, the Gambling Act 2005, which is the basis for regulation of gambling in the UK, has not been updated since it was passed. Today’s debate is a reminder of how unfit that legislation is in meeting the demands of the digital age. As we have heard today, the mental and physical health consequences of harmful gambling can be devastating in many ways. Many of us have met people who have been damaged, and whose families have been damaged, by gambling.

Aside from the cost to individuals, the Government’s own gambling-related harms evidence review showed that the cost to the Government is, at a minimum, at least £340 million each year. Despite that, it has now been two years since the Government committed to publishing a gambling White Paper. Meanwhile, someone with gambling-related problems dies by suicide every day. Government action is long overdue.

The experiences, the stories and the numbers speak for themselves, particularly when it comes to the rapid increase in online gambling practices. I want to particularly focus on that area, as many others have, given that it is the source of many of the harms that we have heard about today,

Among women in particular, online gambling is growing at an alarming rate. According to research by GambleAware, it almost tripled during the pandemic. We need only look at the data for 202-21 from GamCare’s national gambling helpline—it shows that 84% of calls made by individuals related to concerns about online gambling habits—to get a feel for the scale of the problem. It is a problem that we did not appreciate in 2005, but we must now address it and treat it as a public health issue. We need to do more to protect individuals against addictive and easily accessible games, and those protections must include safeguards and affordability checks, particularly for online slot and casino games, where the Government have been slow to act.

As I have said, change is long overdue. Only last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) led an Adjournment debate on the tragic death of his constituent Jack Ritchie, who was driven to take his own life after battling a severe gambling addiction. Jack saw his addiction begin at his local bookies at the age of 17 before moving onto online gambling. That kind of addiction can come very quickly and have devastating consequences.

Jack’s story is a familiar one. I met a group of former gambling addicts about a month ago and they were from a wide variety of backgrounds; as my hon. Friend the Member for York Central pointed out, gambling addiction can hit anybody. They had all followed that same pattern: starting to gamble and then getting into online gambling, and it destroyed their lives. Unbelievably, at the time, banks were prepared to give them loans to fund their gambling habit. It is a problem that we must get a grip on. The whole aim of gambling adverts, incentives and VIP schemes is to maintain or increase the spend of their so-called valuable clients. Those harmful schemes are addictive in nature and offer supposedly free stakes—as my hon. Friend said, there is no such thing as a free bet—to lure customers in. We need to do everything we can to make sure that people like Jack who are aware of their addiction have the tools and support available to help them through their problem.

Will the Minister give an indication of the Government’s thoughts on imposing a mandatory levy on all gambling operators? A levy would help to fund educational resources and treatment services for people suffering as a consequence of their gambling. Colleagues will, I think, be aware that there is already the legal power to impose a levy on the gambling industry; it is already there in legislation. The Government have always insisted that the industry should support harm-reduction work on a voluntary basis, but the current, voluntary system lacks consistency, transparency and accountability. The big five gambling companies have committed to paying 1% of their gross yields towards safer gambling initiatives by 2023, but the variation between online casinos and their donations is a concern. As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said, many of us do not trust that all the gambling companies will act to do the right thing. Labour believes that operators can and must do more to support vulnerable people.

I hope that the Minister will also reflect on the huge increase in online gambling advertising, especially during live sporting events. That can lead to a normalisation of gambling among young people. I am keen to understand the Government’s thinking on how to tackle that—how they can create the evidence base to understand how that advertising affects gambling addiction and how that can inform future policy.

As the online space continues to develop—we are now looking at the issue of gambling in the metaverse, with the potential for virtual reality casino experiences and other experiences—we need to be looking ahead. I am keen to know what the Government are thinking in terms of plans to tighten up safeguards, with a view to the future and gambling in the metaverse. Obviously, we have the Online Safety Bill coming up. That is a matter for another day; we need the Minister to be clear and gambling-focused in his response today. There is currently a discrepancy between the regulation of physical gambling and the regulation of online gambling, with lower-harm games such as bingo being subject to tighter restrictions in some areas than addictive online betting. We need to know the specific steps that the Government are taking to ensure that there is parity. We have concerns that without action and a proper licensing process, the online space will continue to develop as a wild west when it comes to gambling products.

Most importantly given the extent of the issues and the problems that we have heard about, we need to know exactly when the gambling review is due to be published. With respect, we need a date. We have been waiting for a date for a long time now. What we need to see is a plan to tackle problem gambling that is fit for the modern age. There is clearly a political consensus on the importance of getting this right, on the need for reform, so the Minister can be assured of widespread support if the Government act effectively, listen and get the balance right.

[Jonathan Gullis]

On a point of order, Ms Rees. I am very grateful to you and to the Minister for agreeing to allow me to do this. I do apologise. Because my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) kept the clock ticking down on me, I was unable, and forgot, to draw hon. Members’ attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests for the £540-worth of match tickets to Stoke City versus Fulham at the Bet365 stadium in January. I do apologise to Members for that.

[Christina Rees (in the Chair)]

The record is duly corrected. Thank you.