Gaming Machines and Social Responsibility

Lord Browne of Belmont Excerpts

Thursday 17th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I take that point. I am absolutely not suggesting that today’s announcement is the end of it. We will be very specific: the Gambling Commission is looking at requiring operators to set limits on customer spending until affordability checks have been concluded and at bringing forward stricter licence requirements for gambling companies to interact with vulnerable customers. This is not something that we are just letting them get on with; it is being required of them. If a company were to break such stricter licence requirements, it could lose its licence. There would be very serious sanctions if a company did it wrong. The Gambling Commission is also examining proposals to prohibit reverse withdrawals and the use of credit cards for online gambling. We will continue to pay close attention to the operators’ progress in using behavioural data to identify problem gamblers. We are not just sitting back and saying that this is it. We are monitoring it. The Gambling Commission continues to monitor it and is putting in stricter conditions.

[Lord Browne of Belmont (DUP)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Statement today and congratulate the Minister on achieving the £2 stake. We have heard that problem gamblers could now turn to online sites in a big way. Does the Minister therefore agree that this is the time for the Government to look again at introducing measures, such as those that operate in Sweden, to restrict late-night internet gambling and, as he said, ensure that only debit cards and not credit cards can be used as a means of paying the stake?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I have said that this is not the end. As an aim, we want to encourage responsible gambling, so of course we will take into account suggestions such as that from the noble Lord. We are not against gambling, but we want it to be responsible. There is opportunity to monitor it more if it is done online, because of the data that goes backwards and forwards. We will look at these things and we expect policy-making on this to be evidence-based. One thing we will do is increase the research to make sure that we have good evidence that this is a problem, as we have on FOBTs, and that the solution will achieve the result that we want.