William Hill: Breaches of Player Protection

Lord Foster of Bath Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I had the pleasure of serving on that committee under my noble friend and, as I am sure he knows, all its recommendations are being considered as part of our review of the 2005 Act. Both the Government and the Gambling Commission have been taking action in the meantime, including in line with more than a dozen of the committee’s recommendations. That includes: tough new requirements about online VIP schemes; developing a new approach to collecting data on gambling participation and harm prevalence; reforming online slot games so that their speed of play is the same as land-based equivalents; introducing new rules on advertising, including banning the creation of undue urgency to bet and content with a strong appeal to children; raising the age to participate in the National Lottery to 18; and strengthening online self-exclusion, with robust requirements about stopping marketing to people who have excluded themselves from gambling. So we continue to take action while also reviewing the 2005 Act.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as chairman of Peers for Gambling Reform. These and other egregious breaches of current player protection arrangements show all too clearly that these arrangements simply do not work. Given that, as the noble Lord, Lord Grade, pointed out, no new legislation is required, should we not be immediately introducing a single, independently overseen system of light-touch affordability checks to which all gambling companies must adhere?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I think the imposition of this record penalty shows that the Gambling Commission is taking all these issues seriously. Indeed, since the start of 2022, operators have been required to pay more than £76 million because of regulatory failures discovered by the commission. So the commission is doing its work and the Government are doing our work in reviewing an Act that is coming up to two decades old and certainly needs looking at again to make sure we have the regulation and laws in place to ensure that we have a proportionate regulation of this undertaking.