National Lottery: Contribution to Good Causes

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

Allwyn is introducing further measures compared to the previous licence. The noble Lord will be aware that while some players do experience gambling harm, that experienced by National Lottery players is the lowest of all gambling products. Allwyn is also implementing further protections. As was noted, this includes introducing a maximum of 10 scratchcards per transaction, as of last October, and an extensive mystery shopper programme to test retailers’ enforcement of the age-verification measures. We are clear that protecting participants is an overriding statutory duty of the Government and the Gambling Commission. It is embedded within the fourth licence, with a significantly strengthened requirement on the operator to protect people exposed to the National Lottery as well as those directly participating in it, which goes further than under previous licences.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, when I was Minister for Gambling in the Conservative Government, we turned our backs very much against the idea of increasing gambling advertising, particularly on television and at sports facilities during games. I put it to the Minister that matters have got completely out of hand, and that there is far too much of this visual advertising of gambling, which is doing much damage to a lot of people, particularly the younger people in our country.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a good point about the need to protect children from gambling advertising. As he will be aware, operators are prohibited from targeting advertising at children. The Advertising Standards Authority strengthened the rules in 2022 to ban content of strong appeal to children from gambling ads. The wider issue of advertising involves the Gambling Commission introducing new requirements for operators to allow customers to have greater control over any direct marketing they receive. I have personally set the industry a clear task to raise standards further in this area.