Gambling: Fixed-odds Betting Terminals

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Monday 9th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, as regards money laundering, the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 places a duty on gambling operators to be alert to money laundering attempts and to report such attempts to the National Crime Agency. The Government expect all gambling operators to ensure that their anti-money laundering procedures are consistently and effectively applied to minimise risk and maintain good controls. On the point of the size of the stakes, the new measures will require those accessing stakes over £50 to use account-based play or to load cash over the counter. The Responsible Gambling Trust has said that in its view it is,

“overtly naïve and massively premature”,

to suggest that reducing the maximum stake size would help to reduce problem gambling.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, in a casino you will have at least a croupier, an overseer and a manager, all monitoring the behaviour of a gambler, yet on most high streets you can have a small shop with two of these machines and one person behind a screen. Does the Minister seriously believe that the assurances given by the bookmakers can be met as regards monitoring problem gambling?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, clearly, we will see how those measures work. We very much hope that they will work, and we are looking to the gambling industry to ensure that it co-operates on this. Of course, as I said before, the measures require all players of FOBTs to be presented with a choice to set time and money, which we think is an important stage in ensuring a redress of this problem.