William Hill: Breaches of Player Protection

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the Gambling Commission’s finding against William Hill concerning breaches of player protection, and their imposition of a £19.2 million penalty.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice. I declare my interest as a former chairman of the ad hoc Lords Select Committee which published Gambling Harm in July 2020.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, this action was taken by the independent regulator as part of its duty to uphold standards. The Government do not comment on individual enforcement cases; we have, however, continued to see too many cases of operators failing adequately to protect their customers. The Gambling Act review will include a range of policies to strengthen protections further, and we will publish a White Paper in the coming weeks.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Non-Afl)]

I thank the Minister for that response. The Select Committee report on gambling harms made more than 60 recommendations to avoid the worst excesses at the toxic end of the gambling industry. Of those 60-odd recommendations, only five or six, from memory, required primary legislation. In that time, what have the Government done to implement some of the things that might have stopped William Hill, kept it honest and saved some lives in the process?

[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.