Gambling Advertising in Sport

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way on that point. I appreciate the point he is making about gambling being a legal activity. One thing that struck me in the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris), which was so eloquent and detailed, was the sheer, overwhelming presence of gambling advertising, particularly when it comes to young and vulnerable people. My son, who is now at university, used to play FIFA20, or its predecessors. Many children do, and the fact that this advertising is accessible to children is deeply worrying. It is also worrying that it is so ubiquitous at sports grounds, where young people are bombarded by it. Will the Minister say something about the way in which the Government could scale back the level of advertising?

[Nigel Huddleston]

I thank the hon. Member for his comments. He may be tempting me to pre-empt the conclusions of the gambling review that we will be conducting, and I will say more about it later. However, that review will be forthcoming—it was in the manifesto—and we will all have plenty of opportunity to look further into these issues. I cannot say too much more on the specifics at the moment, but I understand the point he is making.

It is true that operators are spending far more on advertising. Research has indicated that operators have increased their spend on advertising and marketing significantly in recent years. It would be easy to assume that that has led to increased rates of gambling or of problem gambling, but, according to the Gambling Commission, the percentage of those who gambled in the last year was 47%, which was 1% less than the percentage who gambled in 2016, and rates of problem gambling have remained relatively steady, at below 1% for the past 20 years. Before the hon. Member for Swansea East intervenes, as I know she will on that point, let me say that that is too high—that is one thing we agree on. We continue to keep a careful eye on the evidence, but more advertising does not seem to lead to more people gambling or more people suffering from gambling problems.

However, there are clearly legitimate concerns about problem gambling. I am pleased that the industry has listened to concerns, such as those raised by the hon. Lady, and has acted to some extent: it has extended existing restrictions on pre-watershed advertising to include live sport—the so-called “whistle-to-whistle ban” that she mentioned.

Protecting children and other vulnerable people from gambling harms is a priority for the Government. Gambling advertising, like alcohol, is already governed by strict rules to ensure that it is not targeted at children and is not of particular appeal to them. Where advertising breaches these rules, the commission can and does take action.

We know that millions of people gamble each year and that nearly 7% of the population bet on sport last year. Most of those people will suffer no harm, but gambling does carry risks. That is why, as part of the last gambling review that took place between 2016 and 2018, we secured a commitment from industry to fund a multimillion-pound safer gambling advertising campaign to highlight the risks and encourage safer gambling behaviours.

Of course, advertising is not the whole story; sponsorship is an important source of income for sporting teams and bodies, as the hon. Member for Swansea East mentioned. The Gambling Commission has been clear that operators must undertake their sponsorship activities in a socially responsible way. The FA has strict rules about the size and placement of operator logos and has taken action when those have been breached. Logos cannot feature on shirts worn by youth team players and on merchandising, including shirts in children’s sizes. Paddy Power’s stunt with Huddersfield led to the FA fining the club.

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Lady is making a fair point and, as I said, I am sure that all these things will be considered in the gambling review. The remit of the review has not yet been scoped, but she will have strong opinions on it—of that I have no doubt.

[Matt Rodda]

The Minister is being extremely gracious to other Members in giving way. Perhaps the review might consider the family nature of watching sport in Britain because, in many cases, families are going to football or to other sport together, and the adults and children are wearing replica shirts together. They are watching the team together, so the presence of the gambling logo is ubiquitous—it is everywhere. I hope that he can address that issue in his review and take it very seriously, because it is easy for children to inadvertently be exposed to logos or attractive advertising, which can affect their perception of gambling very seriously.

[Nigel Huddleston]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. One of the great joys of sport is that it can be a family activity, and we want to minimise any dangers that can be the unintended consequences of participating or observing those activities.

The gambling industry has committed to developing and adopting a new code of conduct for sponsorship activities by the end of 2020. We and the Gambling Commission will be reviewing its efforts closely to ensure that they go far enough. As I have mentioned, we have committed to reviewing the Gambling Act 2005 to make sure that it is fit for the digital age. We will announce further details in due course, but I assure the hon. Member for Swansea East that the Government and the Gambling Commission will not put our work to minimise harm on hold while the review takes place. We will always act on the evidence to prevent harm.

We have already delivered on our manifesto commitment to ban credit card gambling, and we have made it mandatory for operators to be part of GAMSTOP, the national online self-exclusion scheme.