Gambling Advertising

Lord Bethell Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I am a champion of innovation, and I pay tribute to the gambling industry for the remarkable innovations it has made. I am not a big gambler—I enjoy the odd flutter—but I have seen a massive change in the level of entertainment that people get out of gambling. The industry has driven gambling to new audiences, and the way in which you can now gamble on sports is incredibly impressive. It uses advertising to reach audiences it has never reached before, and the image of the old bookie by the racecourse has been replaced by a high-tech company using the latest algorithms and behavioural techniques.

I must warn the industry, however, that with this immense power—the power of innovation, computers and psychological and behavioural science—comes responsibility. I am extremely concerned that it is in a state of denial about the impact of its innovation, particularly on the most vulnerable. We cannot continue to subsidise the industry for the £1.27 billion-worth of harms that is calculated to be affecting our society. We cannot have the NHS helping to look after tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of patients with acute gambling addiction. Some 246,000 people are estimated to have severe gambling harm-related illnesses. That is too heavy a load for our society to be carrying.

I ask the industry and the Minister to consider measures to protect two groups in particular. My noble friend Lady Chisholm talked about children, an area that concerns me in particular. With four small children, I know how much access they have to digital communications, and with a strong interest in sport, they are very easily lured into gambling of all kinds. Digital companies, which is what gambling companies have become, owe it to themselves and to society to make sure that our children are protected.

Secondly, the gambling industry has shown a long-standing generational lack of responsibility to those with severe mental illness when it comes to gambling. Time and again, casinos, and now the digital companies, have not stepped up to their responsibilities by cutting off those who cannot afford their own addiction. They should be using innovation and their digital insight to make sure that those who cannot afford to gamble are not allowed to gamble. The fines given to 888, which were in the papers this morning, are disgraceful. An NHS worker who was paid £1,400 a month was given a gambling gap of £1,300. That is not reasonable.

The industry owes it to itself to step up to these responsibilities, and I urge the Minister to look at ways in which the Government can help it do that.