Gambling: Young People

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I congratulate the noble Baroness on her achievement with the Gambling Act. However, things have not stayed the same since then; for example, the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 brought all gambling websites that provide gambling to British subjects, including foreign websites, under the licensing regime. We realise that this is a fast-moving environment, and the Gambling Commission monitors it on a continuing basis. As I said, we will not hesitate to take action if it is required. However, our statutory adviser has said that age verification is working well.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

My Lords, in his initial Answer to the right reverend Prelate, the Minister mentioned the action the Gambling Commission could take against people offering underage gambling. Can he tell us, first, in how many instances it has taken action and what the consequences were and, secondly, how it takes action against overseas providers of those sites?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My most up-to-date information is that there have been 11 occasions when the Gambling Commission has asked payment providers to prevent payments to unlicensed websites. On all 11 occasions the payment provider either terminated its relationship with the unlicensed operator or took steps to ensure that those websites were no longer available to consumers. There has also been great success with foreign unlicensed gambling websites. The key to this is that gambling is no good if you cannot transact money, so we stop payment providers. They are not prepared to deal with unlicensed—and thereby illegal—operators. I have figures here to show that it has been very successful.