Paul Monaghan
Main Page: Paul Monaghan (Scottish National Party - Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross)Dormant Betting Accounts
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Ronnie Cowan
I have no issue with what the hon. Gentleman is saying. I agree that “When the Fun Stops, Stop” is a very strong campaign led by the gambling organisations, and they should take credit for that. I am not here to lambast gambling as a concept; what we are looking at is problem gambling and facilitating a trigger that I believe we can use to help people who find themselves in that unfortunate situation.
Dr Paul Monaghan (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (SNP)
Does my hon. Friend agree that gambling and debt are often symptomatic of economic and social decline and that the creative use of dormant bank accounts could benefit and bring some relief to such communities ?
Ronnie Cowan
I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend and colleague, and hopefully I shall shine some light on that later in my speech.
Why do dormant betting accounts exist? When I was a boy in the ’60s, I used to enjoy watching the racing on the television with my Uncle Charlie. We would spread out the pages of the newspapers in front of us and gamble. We would watch the racing, pick our horses and calculate how much to bet. Spread betting taught me more about checks and balances than my economics teacher ever did. Because Charlie was a regular gambler, he had an account with the local bookies. From the comfort of his living room he phoned the bookie and placed his bets. Charlie would drop into the bookies during the week and pay his debts or pick up his winnings. The bookie knew Charlie, and the books were balanced weekly.
As technology has advanced, so has our ability to access gambling, which we can do from our phones or tablets at any time of the day. We also now live in a more disposable world. People once worked their entire lives at the same company, lived in the same street all their married lives, banked with the same bank and went to the same place on holiday every year. Now it is easier to change, and we are encouraged to change and move and to take up new offers.
Betting companies tirelessly promote free bets and other generous offers to encourage new customers to sign up. It is not unusual for people to have half a dozen or more accounts with different companies to take advantage of those offers. People can only remember so many user names, passwords and accounts, and eventually, they lose interest or forget about an account that may only have a few pounds in it. Over the passage of time, the accounts become dormant, but do we know how many accounts there are and do we know how much money they contain? The answer to both of those questions is no.
In preparation for the 2010 Department for Culture, Media and Sport report, companies were approached to give a financial breakdown of the amount of money involved in dormant or similar accounts. A majority refused, either on the grounds of commercial confidence or because they claimed to be unable to produce the figures. Betfair provided data about the size and scale of dormant betting accounts, but on a confidential basis. Under the current arrangements, dormant betting accounts are simply reverted to the company profit line after a specified amount of time.