Gambling: Advertising Ban

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree with the noble Lord. Part of the gambling licensing conditions that betting organisations have to abide by are that they should act responsibly and specifically not target young and vulnerable people. It is up to the Gambling Commission to make sure they abide by their licensing conditions.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, when the Minister looks at the effect of gambling on young people, will he take into account the survey conducted by ParentZone yesterday about a new phenomenon called skin gambling? It said:

“Our survey confirmed it is wide-spread, with 10% of children across the UK aged 13-18 revealing they have gambled skins in some form. This percentage amounts to approximately 448,744 children”.


This is surely one of the new phenomena now appearing in social media and elsewhere targeted at young people, and the Government need always to be ahead of the game in these kinds of circumstances.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The Government are aware of that, and when in-game items such as skins can be used to place a bet or gamble, and be converted into cash, it is considered gambling and requires a licence. The Gambling Commission has taken action and prosecuted unlicensed gambling of in-game items known as skins. We are seeking to work with the video games industry to raise awareness of that and explore solutions, but I take the noble Lord’s point. We are aware of gambling in games and it is a new issue of which we are taking account.